


Diving Into The Dark

by SereneCalamity



Series: This Is Heaven In Hiding [4]
Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Badass Clarke, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Kidnapping, Protective Bellamy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2020-05-15 19:23:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19302217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SereneCalamity/pseuds/SereneCalamity
Summary: Bellamy is away on business when Clarke is thrown into the middle of the escalating conflict between households.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys!  
> Sorry about the delay in getting up something else for this one, but this is going to be a little longer.  
> Disclaimer: This is not edited yet, it will be later.

"Fucking hell," Bellamy Blake breathed out shakily, and Clarke Griffin tried to force her eyes open to look back at the screen of her laptop, but with her fingers working rapidly over her clit and her orgasm _right there_ , all she managed was a huff of breath. "Come on, princess," his voice was rough, and she knew that he was close as well. "Come for me." Clarke let out another groan, back arching off the bed and head pressing harder into the pillows underneath her head as she came, soaking into the towel she laid underneath her. Pleasure coursed through her veins as the aftershocks rain through her, and she slowed her motions, eyes slowly opening to watch as Bellamy came over his fist with a grunt.

They didn't talk for a few minutes, as Clarke left her laptop on her bed to go to the bathroom and wipe herself down before slipping into a shirt and underwear, and Bellamy washed his hands and cleaned up, and then Clarke was settling back into her bed, pushing the laptop further away from her so that she could clearly see Bellamy's face.

"Those security cameras that _I know_  are installed in here better now have been recording any of that," Clarke hummed and Bellamy snorted.

"They record everything," Bellamy replied and Clarke instantly felt her cheeks heat up. But before she could retort, he continued. "But I'm the only one who has access to the one that shows your bed."

"I literally just walked naked to the bathroom!" Clarke cried out. "What about that?!"

"Then Murphy better know what's good for him and know that he's meant to switch off the monitors when things like that happen," Bellamy continued and Clarke let out a heavy breath at the idea of John Murphy seeing her naked. She could only imagine the lewd things that he would say to her...But then on the other hand, he could also imagine the things that Bellamy would do to Murphy if he  _did_  say things like that, so may be would be smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

Bellamy could be scary when he wanted to be.

In fact, Clarke was pretty sure Bellamy was scary to _a lot_  of people  _most_  of the time, it was just that she wasn't scared of him, didn't think she ever had been. He'd never done anything but look after her and care for her.

The cameras in her apartment were a new thing, at least to her knowledge. She was pretty sure that there had been one just outside her front door and maybe ones outside her windows and balcony door along with the motion detectors beforehand, but the cameras in  _every_  room were new ones. Bellamy had told her that they weren't going to be monitored all the time, he wasn't looking to invade her privacy, and on top of that, it wasn't as though he personally had the time to watch them, and he could get possessive, so it wasn't as though he would be okay with his guys watching her all the time. Clarke acted as though she didn't like it when Bellamy got possessive, but there was this primal part inside her that did, and in this area, it definitely worked in her favour.

"How long until you're back?" Clarke asked, her eyes starting to droop.

"On Tuesday," Bellamy told her, and he sounded wide awake, despite the fact that where he was was three hours in front of Los Angeles. "I'll try get back before you finish work, pick you up." Clarke nodded her head and yawned. "Alright," his voice was soft. "You go to sleep, princess. I'll ring you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah," Clarke forced her eyes open again, and Bellamy was leaning forward, smiling fondly into the camera.

"Love you," Bellamy told her.

"Love you too," Clarke replied. Clarke reached forward, tapping her finger over the pad of the laptop, exiting out of Skype and then closing her laptop, awkwardly reaching it out and putting it on the bedside table and turning off the light. She buried her head in the pillows and fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning was Sunday, which was usually the day that Clarke would go out with Bellamy for breakfast, if neither of them had anything else on. Since she had officially agreed to go public with him, nearly three months ago, the night before his fathers funeral, they had been going out more and more often. They had gone out in public before then, for dinner and lunches, but they were never alone, there were always other people with them and so it never looked like a proper date scenario. Now, when they went out, there were still other people with them, because Bellamy didn't often go out without at least one or two body guards, but now they kept their distance more often than not, and he would hold Clarke's hand sometimes, or touch her face, and so it was becoming more obvious that they were a couple. They weren't going to make some big announcement or put on some big show, because that wasn't who either of them were, but there were ripples going out through the community Bellamy was apart of, and also just the city in general.

People knew who the Blake household was, they knew who Bellamy was, and so the fact that Clarke was now officially romantically linked to him, meant that people were finding out who Clarke was.

"Clarke!" There was another knock on the door and Clarke groaned, rubbing her eyes as she padded through her apartment, from her bedroom and to the front door. "Open up!" And then yet  _another_  knock on the door as Clarke looked through the peep hole and sighed before unlocking the door. As it swung open, Octavia Blake flashed her a wide smile and tilted her head to the side. "You're up!"

"Well, I am now," Clarke grumbled as she walked back into her apartment, Octavia following behind her and shutting the door, locking it behind them. "What are you doing here so early?" Clarke asked as she walked into her kitchen and flicked on the coffee maker. Octavia was fully dressed and looked as though she had been awake for hours as she hopped up onto one of the barstools, resting her elbows on the counter and looking over at the blonde.

"It's nearly eleven," she stated. "Not my fault you were up until all hours have cyber sex with my brother." Clarke's cheeks heated up at how accurate the younger girl was, and part of her wondered if maybe she knew if that for a  _fact_ , but she reminded herself that Bellamy would have Murphy's head if he had said anything, even to his sister.

"Want coffee?" Clarke asked, ignoring Octavia's playful jab. Octavia just grinned and nodded.

"I thought we could go to the gym? Work out with Roan?" Octavia said as she watched Clarke walk over the fridge to take a bottle of milk out, and then reach up into the cupboard for mugs. Clarke had planned to relax, since she didn't have anything on and Bellamy wasn't there to take her out to brunch, and Madi Tear was coming over for dinner that evening, but there was nothing else for the rest of the day.

"Yeah, alright," Clarke shrugged a shoulder. She would regret saying yes later, like she always did when going to an impromptu session with Roan McGowan, but she also knew that it was good for her. Roan was someone that had gone to school with Bellamy, he had been a year in front of him, and his father had owned a martial arts studio. When Roan had graduated and he had started working full time at the studio, he ended up making some changes, buying the building next door and expanding the studio into a gym as well. It was a thriving business, that did very well, as well as being the exclusive gym used by all of Bellamy's people.

Clarke was pretty sure Bellamy washed money through the gym as well, with Roan getting a nice kickback from it, but she didn't ask any questions because it wasn't really something she cared about.

When Clarke had been at university, before her and Bellamy were exclusive but when they were still sleeping together and she knew how dangerous he was, she started going to a gym to learn self defence. New York itself was also a dangerous place, and so there were a lot of other girls who went as well, to the gym just around the corner from their university, and so it felt like a safe environment. She did kick boxing and a lot of cardio, figuring that her best defence if she got into any trouble would be that she could run away for a long time. Once she have moved back to Los Angeles, and she had reconnected with Octavia and then met Raven Reyes, they had told her that she needed to be more serious about learning to fight.

Bellamy had said that as well.

He had been the one who said that Muay Thai and Jujitsu were a good starting place, and he would ask Roan to do some one-on-one work with her. He came with her a few times, but most of the time, Clarke went by herself. She worked out twice a week, and had another two classes, one before work in the morning and one during her lunch break on a Wednesday. Madi even came with her to a couple of them, although she wasn't quite as serious about them as Clarke was.

"I have to be back by four, though," Clarke said as she poured coffee into the mugs. "Madi is coming over for dinner."

"What's for dinner?" Octavia asked, her eyes narrowing a little, a bit calculating, a very similar expression to Bellamy's.

"Not sure yet, but it's  _just_  me and Madi," Clarke emphasized and Octavia rolled her eyes.

" _Fine_ ," she huffed. "But it's been ages since you've come over and cooked me a meal. I'm feeling like you love this Madi girl more than me."

"I do," Clarke stated drily.

"Bitch," Octavia snapped as she reached over and took her coffee.

"Psycho," Clarke retorted as she lifted her own mug to her lips and took a drink. Octavia just grinned and took a sip. They had never gone to school together, but they had met when they were teenagers, when Abby Griffin had first started working for the Blake household. Marcus Kane was the one who mainly dealt with Abby, that was her point of contact, so that was the person that Clarke saw the most around the house. At that time, Abby didn't have her own clinic, she was working all hours at a private hospital that she hated, and Clarke hardly ever saw, and the only time she was ever really home was a Sunday. And that just so happened to be the day that Marcus always seemed to come over. He realized that it meant Clarke lost time with her mother, and so he had started bringing Octavia over, and they had got on well.

Clarke's relationship with her mother had been tumultuous at best when she was a teenager, after her father died, and after Abby had agreed to work for the Blake household. And honestly, they still weren't particularly close now. They were in a better place, but Clarke was pretty sure that they were never going to be as close as some mothers and daughters were. The way that Abby had thrown herself into her work and practically ignored Clarke after her husband and Clarke's father had died had left Clarke alone and confused, and Clarke had been grateful when she had become friends with Octavia.

"Alright, you go dress," Octavia said. "I'll wait here." Clarke nodded as she carried her coffee mug with her out of the kitchen and threw the lounge, into her bedroom. She put it down on her set of drawers and flicked through them, finding a pair of leggings, a sports bra and a loose red hooded tee-shirt. She finished her coffee a little bit too quickly and felt her tongue burn as she went into her bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. When she came out, Octavia had washed her own cup, and was standing by the double doors that lead out onto the balcony, looking out with her arms crossed over her chest.

"How many cameras does Bellamy have in here?" Clarke asked on a whim.

"Probably about twelve," Octavia replied nonchalantly. Clarke rolled her eyes as she took her own cup to the sink, running water into it and leaving it there to soak. "Motion detectors at the windows and a panic button behind the headboard in your room," she continued with a shrug but Clarke's head jerked at the last thing.

"A panic button? What the—when the—" she broke off. "I didn't even  _know_  about that! What's the point in having a panic button if I don't  _know_  about it?!" Octavia shrugged a shoulder.

"You know about it now," she said. Clarke closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath because she could feel her frustration beginning to rise and Octavia really wasn't the person for her to take this up with.

"Can we just go?" Clarke muttered and Octavia grinned.

* * *

They spent nearly two hours at the gym, and Clarke's shoulders and fists were hurting as they sat down on the benches after they finished, untwisting the tape from around their knuckles. Octavia had already text Roan and given him a heads up that they were coming in, and they were lucky that he hadn't already had a session booked with someone else. Any frustration that Clarke had had that morning was well and truly gone as she flexed her fingers and then picked up her water bottle, taking small sips from it.

"Shit," Octavia mumbled, leaning back against the wall behind them, little whisps of hair escaping the bun that she had tied her hair back in, sticking to her sweaty face and neck. "Did you want to go to that juice bar down the street? Seriously, I could kill for some of their frozen yoghurt right now."

"That sounds fucking amazing...Once I can use my legs again," Clarke muttered and Octavia hummed her agreement. It wasn't like it was really a question anyway, since everytime they went to the gym together, they went to the juice bar. Clarke had been absolutely attacking the punching bag today, spending most of her warm up  _just_  doing that, and while it had helped to work out the tension that she had been feeling this morning, it also meant that her shoulders and fists and thighs were definitely feeling it now. "How is Lincoln doing, holding down the fort?" She didn't whisper, but she kept her voice low, since there were other people around them, and it wasn't their place to advertise that Bellamy was out of town.

"Like he was born to do it," Octavia grinned at Clarke. Clarke nodded, because she agreed. If anything ever happened to Bellamy— _which she never wanted to think about_ —Lincoln would be the one to step in, and he would make Bellamy proud. Sometimes it would go to another family member—like how Bellamy had become head of the household when James Blake had retired, rather than Marcus, his second. But Octavia in charge  _really_  wouldn't be a good idea, and everyone knew that, including Octavia. She was rash and acted without thinking and could be harsher than required in a lot of situations, which meant that she escalated things a lot more than they needed to be. She didn't  _want_  to be a leader, though, she was better as a soldier, as a fighter. "Murphy is getting pretty pissy though, with Raven being away."

"I honestly think they're such a weird couple," Clarke commented. "They're too similar."

"They're not a couple," Octavia pointed out. "They're just sleeping together because it's familiar and convenient and neither of them want to put in the effort to have a real relationship." Clarke raised an eyebrow at Octavia, because the other woman really wasn't the best when it came to talking about  _feelings_  and  _emotions_  and so that little speech sounded as though it was rehearsed. Octavia gave her a sheepish smile. "Lincoln may or may not have been having a bit of a rant about them last night."

"Can't imagine Lincoln caring about them," Clarke wrinkled her nose.

"Well, Lincoln is best friends with Shaw, right?" Octavia continued and Clarke nodded. Lincoln pretty much kept to himself, so other than Octavia and Bellamy, Zeke Shaw was definitely the other person that Clarke ever really saw him with him by choice. "Well, apparently Shaw has a bit of a thing for Raven, and so the fact that Raven and Murphy are sleeping together when they barely even like each other enough to hold a conversation is making Shaw mope a little."

"So...Lincoln has been gossiping their relationship?" Clarke couldn't help but grin. She wondered if Bellamy knew that his second was so invested in the sleeping relationships of their people.

" _Ranting_ ," Octavia corrected as she stood up, arching her back and stretching her arms above her head. "Not gossiping."

"Sounds like gossiping," Clarke smirked as she took another sip of water before standing up. Octavia grinned and then pulled her hair out of the messy bun it was in to rearrange it, this time into a braid down her back, all of the hair twisted together this time. Clarke similarly fixed her hair, more just to get it all away from her face, and stop it from sticking to her neck. Her hair was getting longer again, a couple of inches below her shoulders, and she knew that Bellamy was hoping that she was going to let it grow out again. She'd kept it short for almost two years now, and she had to admit, she kind of missed it long as well.

"Ready?" Octavia asked as she picked up her gym.

"Ready," Clarke agreed, picking up her own and tucking her water bottle inside. As they left the gym, Roan caught their eye and jerked his chin at them, and Octavia did the same chin-flick-ackowledgment back while Clarke waved, and then they were ducking outside. They had come in Octavia's car, a flashy, gun metal coloured Maserati Gran Turismo, that had been an anniversary present from Lincoln last year, and they threw their bags into the back before getting into the front. The juice bar was only just up the road, but given they would be heading off to Clarke's straight after, Octavia drove there, parking opposite the bar. They headed inside and joined the line, Clarke looking up at the menu and trying to decide what the wanted, if she was going to get a frozen yoghurt like Octavia or a drink.

"Clarke?" Octavia nudged Clarke, and the blonde looked over at her friend. Octavia had an eyebrow raised and was looking over at someone who was standing off the side with a little paper slip with his order number on it. "Isn't that..." she trailed off and Clarke frowned, and then blinked when she recognised the person. Someone that she hadn't seen she was eighteen, since when she had graduated high school. She licked her tongue over her lips as she considered whether or not she was going to say something when the man lifted his head and their eyes met, and it would just be rude if she looked away and fiegned ignorance now.

"Finn?" Clarke questioned, raising her voice a little to be heard over the music that was playing and the chatter from the others in the shop. The brunette man looked up, and a surprised smile spread across his face.

"Clarke? Shit—hey!" Finn Collins took a few steps toward the two girls, his hands spread out in front of him, as though trying to figure out if he should go in for a hug. "And...Octavia, right?"

"Yeah," Octavia jerked her head in a nod, not looking particularly impressed, which Clarke could understand. She'd only met Finn a few times with Clarke, and none of them had been great experiences, given Finn had been a high school stoner who had gone to school with Clarke.

"It's been ages," Clarke commented, because she never really knew what to say when she ran into old high school friends. It had been almost eleven years, and other than putting on a little weight around his face and his hair being a bit shorter, Finn looked exactly the same. She really didn't know if anything else had changed, and she wasn't particularly interested. He had been part of the crowd that she had fallen in with at high school who had introduced her to drugs and she had taken the fall for him specifically when they had gotten into a car crash after drinking, saying that it had been  _her_  who had been driving, not Finn, because she knew that Abby's connections would get her out of trouble.

"It has been," Clarke nodded. "Um—are you still living in the city?"

"Yeah, I just moved up from San Francisco, I've been down there for the past couple of years," Finn smiled at her warmly. "And you're obviously still here as well?"

"I moved back about five years ago," Clarke said before Octavia pointed cleared her throat and Clarke looked forward and realized that they were now the customers up to be served. She shot Finn a quick smile before turning to the girl behind the counter. Octavia ordered first and Clarke had to rush to make up her mind, and she ended up going with a berry smoothie. Octavia paid and when Clarke turned around, Finn was still standing there and looking at her expectantly, and she realized that she was still going to have to continue this conversation.

Next time she went to the gym with Octavia, she was going to make sure she delivered an extra hard hit in the boxing ring to thank you for getting her into this awkward situation in the first place.

Although, to be fair, she  _had_  been the one to say hi in the first place.

"So you always wanted to be a nurse. Did you end up getting qualified?" Finn asked and Clarke was surprised, because they had never really spent all that much time getting to know each other, even though she had spent most of her senior year hanging around with him and his friends.

"Yeah, I did," Clarke nodded. "I work with my mum now." Finn arched an eyebrow at her, and Clarke could imagine the questions that were running through his head, given the relationship that she had had with her mother the last time they had interacted. Clarke couldn't help a rueful smile. "Things are obviously a bit better between us now."

"That's good," Finn said, and he sounded genuine as he gave her a smile. Clarke smiled back, and she thought that  _maybe_  this wasn't so awkward when a number was called out and Finn lifted his head. "That's me," he told Clarke before stepping away.

"He's not actually too bad," Octavia hummed out from beside Clarke, looking up from where she had been texting on her phone. "I remember that he never used to be able to string a sentance together because he was so fucking stoned back in high school, but now that he can actually hold a conversation and his hair doesn't look so long and gross, he's actually kinda cute. I get why you banged him." Clarke rolled her eyes as Finn came back over.

"I better be heading out," Finn said as he came back with a smoothie in his hand. "But maybe we could catch up for a coffee or something?" Clarke could feel Octavia's eyes on her pointedly, but she ignored them, nodding. Finn pulled out his phone and held it up with a charming smile. "Can I get your number or—"

Suddenly the whole atmosphere changed and it felt as though things were simultaneously moving in fast forward and slow motion all at the same time.

Octavia tensed next to Clarke which made Clarke turn her head toward the other girl, looking for whatever it was that had caught her attention. It didn't take long, given there was a dark, non-descript van that had just pulled up outside— _right_  outside the door, not in a parking spot—and there were two large men that got out, wearing dark clothes and ski masks pulled over their faces. A few other people in the shop realized as well and there were screams and yells and people were starting to move, but Clarke didn't step away from Octavia's side.

"Clarke, we need to go!" Octavia hissed out, but then the men were running directly toward them, and they all but ignored Clarke, four strong arms going toward Octavia and pinning her down. Clarke vaguely heard Finn shouting next to her but Clarke couldn't say anything, her tongue felt too big in her mouth. Her body, however, seemed to know what it was doing without her even really knowing what was happening.

Her and Octavia fought against the men, although it was obvious that Octavia wasn't able to fight as much, given one of her arms was pinned firmly behind her back, twisted up at an angle that looked painful. Clarke felt as though she managed to land a few good punches, but then the men were already moving, and they were dragging Octavia with them. Clarke tried to follow, but she was being held back, even though she was struggling against the arms that were holding her.

"You can't do that—we have to wait for the police. They might take you too!" Finn was saying as he held her arms, and there was another man with his arm around her waist, some guy in a suit with wide eyes. "We'll call the police, they'll find her."

Clarke swallowed hard as the van screeched away from the curb, her eyes dropping to look at where the licence plate  _should_  be, but it was gone, and then, so was Octavia.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, beautiful people :)  
> Also, this may end up being longer than nine chapters. Let's just say nine is tentative at this point. Haha.

Bellamy let out a heavy breath through his nose, feeling bored and fighting the urge to roll his eyes like Octavia probably would in this situation, and then looked over to where Raven Reyes was standing near one of the doorways. Her arms were folded over her chest, and her lips were pursed together, but her eyes looked as though they were about to close from utter boredom, just like him.

Thelonious Jaha was droning on about something that Bellamy had been paying attention to an hour ago when he had first started, but had steadily lost interest in as time had gone on. Most other people had as well, going by the glazed over expressions on their faces, and Bellamy tried to distract himself by studying the others at the long table. There was Thelonious, of course, and next to him was Anya Lachman, then Russell Lightbourne, Alie Cult, Charles Pike, Bill Cadogan and Paxton McCreary. They were all heads of households across their country, and then the next. Boston was Jaha's place of residence, Anya was from São Paulo in Brazil, Russell was from Juneau in Alaska, Alie was from Ecatepec de Morelos in Mexico, Charles was from New York, Bill was from Dallas and Paxton was from Montreal in Canada. They weren't the only heads around, but they were the ones with the firmest alliances, and that meant that even though it was a hassle, they would get together at least four times a year to meet and talk, make sure everyone was still on the same page.

A while ago, when it had been Bellamy's father in charge, and Cage Wallace's father in chage, the pair of them had both been amicabale, and Dante Wallace and been a part of this alliance as well. Cage had taken over as head of a household before Bellamy officially had, so he hadn't come to the last meeting that Cage had attended, announcing that while he appreciated the security of the alliance, he didn't like want to feel indebted to anyone, or like he needed to run his ideas past anyone. He made it seem like a decision that he hadn't come to lightly with the way his words were phrased, but it was clear to everyone around the table that he was an arrogant young boy who didn't understand how important it was to have allies in the dangerous world they lived in.

The people around the table weren't the only ones in the room, everyone had one other person accompanying them. None of them had their second, given their second was making sure things were all still running smoothly while they were meeting over the few days, it was generally one of their strongest soldiers. Bellamy had Raven, and he recognised the other people in the room as well. Charmaine Diyoza here with Paxton, Indra Tondc with Anya and Ryker Desai with Russell, but while he recognised the others by sight, he didn't spend enough time with them to intimately know their people, so he wasn't sure of their names.

Bellamy knew that meeting together was important to keep their working alliance strong, but right now he felt on edge, because things had just been building and building for a while and he knew that something bad was coming—something worse than Jaspers murder and his fathers dead.

"Blake," Lightbourne voice was loud and questioning, and Bellamy tilted his head to the side to look over at the older man. "You're the closest one to San Francisco, you're the one who's had the most interactions with Wallace. I assume you're keeping an eye on him." Bellamy hadn't been the one to bring him up, he hadn't wanted to look as though he was worried, showing that he was worried showed weakness, and even with people who were allies, he had to be strong. "Is there anything we need to know about?" Bellamy pursed his lips together and drummed his fingers on thet table top.

"I think that there are a lot of things we need to be aware of, and I don't know all of them yet," Bellamy stated. He wasn't going to tell them that he had had Raven and Shaw take a trip out into Cage's territory, spending a few days in Palo Alto at one of his bases and take photos of his people, keeping an eye on them. Their two territories bordered on one anothers, and Cage's was smaller than Bellamy's, which is why he seemed to keep on trying to encroach onto Bellamy's. "Obviously there was—"

"The death of your man," Anya stated quietly from where she was sitting at her end of the table. She didn't speak too much, only when she really needed to, which Bellamy appreciated.

"Yes," Bellamy felt his back teeth grit together involuntarily at the mention of Jasper.

"Which was only retaliation for something  _you_  did," McCreary said bluntly and Bellamy's anger flared inside him, his back straightening and fingers curling into a fist on the table.

"He was trafficking underage girls!" Bellamy snapped.

"Not in your territory!" McCreary snapped back, leaning forward in his seat and Jaha quickly noted the rising tensions and laid his hands down on the table, trying to take control of the situation.

"Alright, alright," he said in his soft voice that had a way of getting it's way under Bellamy's skin. "There's no need for us to go back and rehash history."

"Especially when it doesn't work in the Golden Boys favour, right?" McCreary shot at Jaha, who sighed and Bellamy's upper lip curled angrily, into a snarl, and he was about two seconds away from leaning over and punching the dirty blonde directly in the mouth when Raven was suddenly at his side, a hand on his shoulder.

"Bellamy," her voice was urgent, a lot more worried than a little tiff over a table warranted. Bellamy turned to look at her and her face looked pale, her eyes wide, and her phone was clenched in her hand. "We need to get back home."

"What? Why—what happened?" Bellamy asked, eyebrows pulling together.

"Clarke and Vee were attacked," Raven said, words clipped. "Vee's been taken."

* * *

Raven had insisted on driving to the airport even though Bellamy had tried to get into the drivers side twice before he had relented the keys. But he needn't have worried, because Raven drove almost as recklessly as Bellamy would have, exceeding the limit and taking corners at break neck speed. She took the back roads so that they wouldn't have many issues with police cars although there would definitely be tickets coming in the mail from the amount of speed cameras that they flew past, just in the space from the compound where they were meeting to the airport. That was the last thing on Bellamy's mind though as he made numerous calls from the passenger seat.

First to Lincoln.

Then to Murphy.

Next to Clarke.

And then Lincoln again.

Then to Sterling Tracey, a police officer at the LAPD who was on Bellamy's payroll, demanding that he start looking into his sisters disappearance under the rader as soon as possible.

And then Clarke video called  _him_ , and as soon as her face filled his screen, it forced him to take a breath and it felt as though his chest wasn't so tight it was going to start crushing his heart.

"Where are you?" Clarke demanded, eyes wild as she stared up at him through the phone.

"About..." Bellamy glanced at the GPS. "Ten minutes from the airport."

"Murphy has organised your flight. He's emailed you the manifest," she told him and Bellamy nodded, dragging in another breath through his nose and clenching his fingers tightly around his phone. "I'll be at the airport to pick you up."

" _No_!" Bellamy shouted, jolting forward in his seat and he caught Raven looking over at him with a raised eyebrow, undoubtedly at his voice suddenly exploding in the small car, even though he had been yelling for pretty much the past half hour, since they had gotten into the car in the first place. "No," he repeated, lowering his voice a bit. "I want you to stay at the house."

"I won't be alone," Clarke tried to say but Bellamy was shaking his head.

" _No_ ," he repeated for a third time. "I want you to stay at the house. I don't want you to leave. I want Shaw or Murphy or Lincoln with you at all times." The corner of Clarke's mouth tightened, and it was clear that she wanted to argue, but she didn't, just jerked her head in a nod. When quiet fell, Bellamy could hear voices in the background, one that he didn't recognise and he frowned as Clarke looked off camera. "Who's that?" He asked gruffly, and the picture on the camera shifted as Clarke turned her phone. Lincoln and Murphy were in the room, neither of them looking happy, Lincoln was pacing and Murphy was gripping the back of a chair so tightly his knuckles were bloodless. But then there was another guy there as well, one that Bellamy was pretty sure he had never met before. "Who the fuck is that?" He asked, not bothering to phrase his question any nicer because he just wasn't in the mood for pleasentires. The guy looked at the camera with a surprised expression on his face and Clarke turned the camera back to her.

"He's an old friend," Clarke replied shortly, whose mood about as good as Bellamy's. "I'll see you in a few hours." Bellamy jerked his head in a nod and then ended the call without saying anything else, throwing his phone onto the dashboard with more force than required. Raven looked over at him again, but she didn't say anything before looking back at the traffic, not even bothering to indicate before she jerked the car into the next lane and over took the car in front of them.

"The plane all ready?" Raven asked shortly as she pulled into the original lane they had been in, and getting an angry toot from the car she cut off. She flipped them the bird over her shoulder and got another angry toot, since they had obviously seen through the rearview window, and kept on driving. Bellamy grumbled under his breath as he grabbed his phone again and opened up his emails. Just like Clarke had said, there was one waiting from Murphy, a forward from the pilot that they kept on retainer, letting them know when their plane would be ready.

Very quickly, even with short notice.

"They'll have it ready by eleven-thirty," Bellamy muttered.

"That's another half hour," Raven replied as she glanced at the time on the dashboard radio.

"What?" He grunted. "You can't make it in time?" Raven snorted at that, rolling her eyes.

"We're ten minutes out. I'll dump this car in parking and call the rental company while we're walking in. Get our shit through TSA and board—that still leaves you with a solid five minute window, boss," Raven retorted and Bellamy couldn't help but given her a tight smile, thankful that he had her with him right now. If it was Murphy or Monty Green or even Lincoln, Bellamy wasn't sure how they would be working in this situation, and Raven was handling it perfectly. "Bell?" Raven said as they came to a stop at a red light.

"Mm?" Bellamy looked over at her.

"We'll get her back," she said, voice laced in determination.

* * *

By the time Bellamy and Raven got off the plane and managed to get through the crowds of people, it was only just going on four o'clock in Los Angeles, given the time difference even after the six hour flight. Lincoln was easy to spot in the crowd, standing completely still in the ever moving flood of people around him, eyebrows drawn together and lips turned down, and at his side was Shaw. Bellamy actually felt Raven's body slump a little next to him, maybe in relief, but his own body was still just as tense as it had been since when he had heard that his sister was gone.

"Monty's got a car out front," Shaw said when Bellamy and Raven reached them, and all four turned and swiftly began making their way to the exit, people moving out of the way, seeming to realize that they weren't to be messed with. It didn't take long for them to get out of the airport and get into the car, Bellamy taking the passenger seat and Lincoln, Raven and Shaw getting into the back. The moment they pulled away from the curb, the car erupted into chatter. Bellamy stayed quiet as he listened to the people around him; Monty telling him they were going straight back to the house and who was waiting for them there, Raven asking if they had any more information and Shaw was running through everything that Clarke had told them up until Octavia had been taken and Lincoln was talking n his calm, low voice, telling Bellamy all the people that they had called in. They kept on talking, over and over, Raven pushing Shaw for things he had already said because she had over-talked him the first time and when they were about five minutes out from the Blake manor, Bellamy gritted his teeth together.

" _Quiet_!" He said firmly and the car went silent. Bellamy had been keeping it together since hearing the news about his sister, even on the six hour flight when he had almost been twitching out of his seat, and he had never been more thankful for having a private plane so that he didn't need to worry about any civilians around him.

But now that they were back in California, and he was so close to home, and his  _sister_  wasn't going to be there.

She had been taken.

While she had been with Clarke.

Clarke could have been taken as well.

Bellamy was going to kill the people who had attacked the most important women in his life.

The most important  _people_  in his life.

The car was quiet as they drove up the long driveway toward the manor and then when it came to a stop in front of the grand, concrete steps that lead to the front door. There were a cluster of other cars all gathered in the driveway a little further up, from some of his other people who didn't live at the manor, but Bellamy didn't acknowledge them or even wait for the car to be turned off before he was shoving open his door and getting out of the car. Lincoln was close behind him, his jaw clenched just as tight as Bellamy's, their hands in fists at their sides, and the other three practically had to run to catch up with them, especially Monty and his short legs. Bellamy went straight for the stairs that were leading up to the second floor where his study was, and no one stopped him, so he knew he was heading to the right place. He didn't even  _mean_  for it to happen, but his heart started beating faster in his chest and his breathing began coming out harder and when he shoved open the door to his study and saw  _Clarke_ , his stomach squeezed so tight he thought for a moment that he was going to throw up all over the floor.

"Clarke..." he breathed out and he saw her throat convulse as she swallowed hard, and then they were crossing the space between them and wrapping her up in his arms. She didn't cry and she didn't shake, and part of Bellamy was glad for that, because he knew that if she broke down, he would only be a few seconds behind her. But another part of him knew that  _he_  was the only reason that she was forcing herself to hold it together, and he hated that she was trying to fight down  _feeling_  right now. For him. He didn't let go of her, one arm banded tightly around her waist and the other over her shoulder, his hand cupping the back of of her head, holding it against his chest, as he looked over to where Murphy was standing.

And the guy that had been with Clarke and Octavia when everything had happened.

He decided not to address that right now, and he was just glad that his closest people were in the room with him, other than Marcus Kane.

"Where's Kane?" He asked.

"On his way," Murphy responded immedietly. "He's picking up Abby first though, he doesn't want her alone right now." Clarke's body jerked at that, but Bellamy didn't want to let her go, and he tightened his grip on her. But she jerked again, pushing at him instead of holding him, and he reluctantly loosened his grip. She pulled her head back and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Do we need to be worried about other people we're close with? Do I have to be worried about Madi?" She asked and Bellamy pursed his lips together, wondering how far this was going to topple.

If they all started worrying about the people closest to them, they were going to end up with over fifty in the manor, and that was just at a quick head count. And while Bellamy understood wanting to protect the people he loved—which he had  _failed_  in doing so, apparently—he didn't want to start a riot of worried people with weapons.

"Bellamy," Clarke repeated, her hands moving and gripping his jacket firmly. "Do I have to be worried about Madi? Should I bring her here?" She asked and Bellamy took in a deep breath before looking around.

"Alright," he said quietly, but he it was heard by everyone in the room. "No one is going to panic. I don't want this to get out to the rest of the household, I don't want anyone else to know about this other than the people in this room—"

"And Sterling," Raven interjected.

"And Sterling," Bellamy agreed abruptly. "I want us to keep this shit under control and I want my sister home  _now_." And then he was turning around and stalking out of the room, his hand wrapped tightly around Clarke's wrist and dragging her after him. He heard his people talking behind him but he didn't care, he just needed to get Clarke and get away from everyone. They strode down the hallway and reached the room near the end, and he slammed the door behind them.

Clarke's face crumbled the moment they were securely alone.

"Everything just fucking happened so fast," Clarke said, her breathing coming out in hiccups as she threw her entire weight against Bellamy. He caught her and felt his own breathing coming out quickly as the weight of the situation settled on his shoulders. He herded Clarke toward the bed and they sat down on the edge, their bodies pressed close together, and he tried to settle his breathing back down. "Everything just—they completely ignored me, Bell. They weren't after me. They were  _just_  there for Vee." Bellamy's head jerked at that comment and he looked at her, processing that information, and she nodded, eyes glassy with tears. "There were—there were two men, and they just  _ignored_  everyone else in the place, and they just went  _straight_  for Vee, and there wasn't anything I could do," her voice got a little higher pitched and Bellamy squeezed her shoulder, trying to reassure her. "There wasn't anything I could do," she repeated and Bellamy let out a heavy sigh.

"I know, princess," Bellamy leaned in and pressed a kiss against her temple. "I believe you." Clarke didn't say anything, but he saw a tear slide down her cheek and he leaned in, wiping a thumb over her cheek, swiping away the tear and then cupping her face with his hand, turning it up to face him. "I want you to rest, okay?"

"I'm not tired," Clarke began to protest but then she stopped and blinked, and as if on cue, she yawned. If this was any other situation, Bellamy would laugh, but he just leaned in and kissed her cheek softly.

"It's been a fucking long day, and I want you to get some rest, okay?" He told her and Clarke nodded, glancing over at his made bed, where she hadn't been for the past week. "And I'll get Madi here, okay?" He hadn't seen Madi since that time in the clinic, when she had helped him and Clarke had absolutely blown up. But this was a completely different situation, and he needed Clarke to be safe, and feel comfortable because there were other thing that he needed to focus on.

"Okay. Thank you," Clarke took in a deep breath through her lips and then let it out through her nose. Bellamy nodded and got up. "I love you," Clarke quickly added, the words coming out quickly, almost anxiously.

"I love you too," Bellamy said, unable to stop himself from giving her another kiss before leaving the room. Lincoln was waiting just outside, and after he closed the door, he faced his second, ice beginning to fill his veins and fire burning in the pit of his stomach, his voice turning to steel. "We're going to find the fucker who took my sister, and then we're going to kill him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did you guys enjoy it? Yes? Let me know, I thrive off your beautiful comments.  
> Also, question, how would you guys feel about a werewolf Bellarke AU? Thoughts?
> 
> Twitter: CalamitySerene  
> Tumblr: SereneCalamity


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, I'm so sorry about the delay in posting. My whole entire life was poured into this Harringrove oneshot that was meant to be 15k to begin with, and ended up blowing up to being over 35k, sooooo...That took over all my creative life for a while. Haha. But here's the update! And if you feel like checking out the story that took over my life, it's called I Found Love (Where It Wasn't Supposed To Be).  
> As usual, not yet edited, so apologies in advance.

Clarke had never been good at sleeping through the day, so she was surprised by the fact that she slept for a few hours. When she woke up, she blinked and stretched slowly, yawning as she looked toward the windows of Bellamy's room and saw that the it was dark. She let out a sigh and rubbed her hand over her face, looking for her phone, which she had set down on the bedside table. She picked it up and she had a few notifications. One from Facebook, a couple Snapchats, two texts from Madi and then a missed call from a number she didn't know and a text from the number as well. It was sent an hour and a half ago.

_**I can help you find Blake. Meet me tonight. Alone.** _

Clarke shot up in bed, feeling completely awake now, fingers tight around her phone, breathing coming out in a harsh  _whoosh_. The hand that wasn't around the phone lifted, fingers hovering over the screen, wondering if she should swipe over the notification and reply before hesitating and chewing down on her bottom lip.

She had the numbers of all of Bellamy's people on her phone. Not just the people in Bellamy's inner circle either, there were a lot of numbers on her phone that he gave her 'just in case'. They didn't have  _her_  number, of course, but she had theirs, and this number wasn't  _any_  of those. She took in a deep breath and tapped out a simple reply.

_Who are you?_

She stared at her phone, feet tapping out a rapid rhythm under the blanket that she had pulled over herself when she had climbed into Bellamy's bed, but there was no reply for almost five minutes, and she couldn't just keep sitting there when everything was happening outside this bedroom, so she got up. Her clothes were a little rumpled, since she hadn't bothered undressing, not thinking that she would sleep for longer than a half hour nap or so, and she dragged her fingers through her hair, since it was a bit matted on the side that she had been resting on. She looked back at her phone, staring at the screen for a few seconds, willing another text to come in, but when nothing did, she went for the door, opening it up and glancing around. There was no one in the hall, and it was completely quiet, so she walked past the study and to the stairs and down to the first floor. She wasn't sure what she was planning on doing, but when she got downstairs, Madi was there, and she looked up at Clarke with big eyes and a relieved smile.

"Clarke!" She cried out, running over and throwing her arms around Clarke. Clarke couldn't help but pull Madi in close and hold her tight, feeling incredibly relieved that Madi was  _here_ , and she was  _safe_.

There was a lot that had always been unsafe from the moment that Abby had become involved with Bellamy and his household.

"What's going on?" Madi asked as Clarke let her go, although her hands stayed on the younger girls shoulders. "I mean—I know who these people are. I  _know_  who Bellamy Blake is and I  _have_ met him before," she raised her eyebrows and gave Clarke a pointed look that the blonde chose not to address. "But why am I here?" Clarke cleared her throat as she tried to file things in order in her head, and think about what she was able to tell Madi. Bellamy wouldn't mind if Clarke chose to tell Madi everything, because he trusted her judgement, but it was about whether or not Clarke wanted to tell Madi.

The girl had only been in her life for a short while, just over two years now, but she was still one of the most important people in Clarke's life. There was a reason why she had gotten so angry when Bellamy had gotten Madi to help him with an injured man that he was trying to get information out of, and that was because she had tried so hard to shelter Madi from Bellamy and his household. Clarke and Abby were both involved, and Madi knew that there was some after hours activity that happened at the clinic, but the clinic belonged to Abby, and so Madi seemed to just reason that it was up to her what happened in her clinic. They hadn't talked about when Clarke had gone into work the next day, and it was something that Clarke was hoping she could put off as long as possible—even though she knew her time was numbered, since she had agreed to go public with Bellamy after all these years.

"One of my friends is in trouble, and we just wanted to make sure that no one else  _might_  get in trouble," Clarke finally said, and Madi sighed, and it looked as though she wanted to say something else but then Raven came out of the main lounge and Madi was distracted.

"You're up," Raven stated.

"Heard anything?" Clarke couldn't help but ask, even though Madi was standing between them. Raven obviously thought that as well, because she arched an eyebrow and looked looked at Madi before turning her eyes back to Clarke.

"No," Raven replied simply.

"Nothing?" Clarke pressed, thinking about the phone in her hand.

"Nothing," Raven repeated back, and it was clear that she wasn't going to say anything else in front of Madi. "Kane and Abby are on their way here, and Murphy's gonna go out and get something for dinner. Bell doesn't want any strangers on the property."

"Is Murphy going now?" Clarke asked and Raven shook her head.

"He'll wait until Kane and Abby get here," she replied, and then shrugged a shoulder. "If you know what you want for dinner, he's in the garage." Madi looked at Clarke, her eyes narrowing and Clarke tried to keep her face free of emotion.

"So? Do you know what you want for dinner?"

"You still haven't told me what's going on," Madi pointed out. Clarke felt bad for stil keeping things from Madi, but now wasn't the time. It was going to  _be_  that time soon, though.

"I will, okay?" Clarke told her, squeezing her shoulder. "I promise. But for now, decide what you want for dinner, and I'll go and find Murphy and let him know." Raven was watching Clarke with sharp eyes, and part of the blonde wondered if Raven knew what was going on in Clarkes head—that she wasn't just going to find Murphy, but she was going to convince him to take her with him when he left the grounds to go and get dinner. She wasn't sure how happy he would be, but she could be persuasive if she needed to be.

"Don buri? From that place around the corner from work?" Madi asked, relenting a little and not pushing Clarke any more about why she had been whisked from work and brought to this strange location, but it was clear from the way she was looking at Clarke that she wasn't finished.

"With the garlic mayo and extra crispy chicken?" Clarke couldn't help a tight smile and Madi nodded at her. Clarke leaned forward and pressed a kiss against Madi's head and took a step back before looking over at Raven. "What did you want?"

"Just get me the same as the kid," Raven said, eyes still narrow and Clarke pressed her lips together as she tried to act as though she wasn't hiding anything. "But sweet chilli sauce and mayo, just normal mayo, not garlic." Clarke nodded, turning on her heel and heading toward the garages, pulling her phone back out of her pocket. She still didn't have a reply but she tapped out another one.

_I can get out of the house soon. Will message details shortly._

It wasn't smart telling someone that she was going to be in a vulnerable position soon, but if the person on the other end of the number had some sort of information about Octavia, then she needed to find out what it was. She was still looking at her phone as she walked down the steps and pushed open the door that seperated the house from one of the garages, but there still wasn't any reply from the number and she sighed as she looked up. Murphy was on the far side of the garage, and he had a lamp on as he worked on the engine of one of the cars.

"I've got some dinner orders," Clarke stated as she walked across the garage to where he was standing. Murphy didn't look up from where he was working, just grunted in acknowledgment to what she was saying. "And I'm going with you."

"Doubt that," Murphy snorted, still not bothering to look up.

"I am," Clarke snipped and then there was a heavy sigh and Murphy braced his hands on the metal frame of the car and turned his head to look at her.

"So I guess I'll just go and run that by Bellamy, then?" The corner of his mouth tipped up in a smirk, because he  _knew_  that Bellamy wouldn't be okay with Clarke leaving the safety of the house after everything that had just happened.

"Yeah—no," Clarke shook her head. "I'm not supposed to bring anyone, and if we involve Bellamy, he's going to send an army." The smirk dropped off Murphy's face and his eyebrows pulled together.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

* * *

Once Clarke had showed Murphy the text on her phone, it hadn't been hard to convince him to let her hide in the car when he left to go and pick up the food. She knew that he would be the easiest one to convince—even Lincoln wouldn't budge on this, and he was Octavia's boyfriend. There was a possibility that she might have been able to convince Monty, if he was the one who was going out to get food, although that would be less likely, so she had really gotten lucky that Murphy was the one who was going out to get food. She had to tell Madi that she was going out, or else she might blow the whole thing by asking someone where Clarke was, but then she also had to ask Madi to keep quiet about it, which the younger girl hadn't looked too happy about but had agreed to, and then Clarke had told Raven that she was still tired and was going back upstairs to nap.

It was a flimsy excuse and there was no way that it was actually going to hold up, it was just a matter of time before they realized that she was gone and sent the cavalry, but it was all they had.

**_By the docks in 20. Alone._ **

"Fucking hell, the docks?" Murphy's hands shifted around the steering wheel as Clarke read out the response that she finally got from whoever it was who had managed to get ahold of her number. "This really isn't a good idea, Clarke."

"We don't have a choice, do we?" Clarke snapped from where she had just moved into the front seat from where she had been crouched in the backseat with a dark blanket pulled over her when Murphy had pulled out of the garage and driven out of the Blake property. "Raven said that they didn't have any other leads, and she  _would_  have told us if they had something, so—we have to do this, Murphy." He didn't reply, but his lips were pursed together and he was breathing heavily through his nose, and she knew that  _he knew_  that this was their only option.

Bellamy wouldn't agree, but the only reason that he wouldn't agree is because the person was texting  _Clarke_. If it was literally any other person, he would go along with it, because it was his  _sister_ , that they were talking about, but if there was one person that Bellamy would dumbly refuse to let help, it would be Clarke.

"How bad an idea is this?" Clarke asked bluntly after ten minutes had passed and Murphy sighed.

"A  _really_  bad idea," he muttered and Clarke tugged at her hair, which was getting longer now, almost as long it was before she had it a few years ago before she had cut it short and decided to keep it that way. She pulled some of it between her fingers, twirling it through the digits and trying to calm down the clenching that was happening in her stomach, to the point where she was feeling sick.

"I haven't been to the docks since I was a kid," Clarke mumbled, mainly because she just wanted to say something to fill the tense silence that was filling the car.

"It's not a good place to go when having these kinds of meetings. It's not a good place to go when having these kinds of meetings _at night_ ," Murphy said, even though Clarke could figure that out on her own. "We've got people on our payroll there, I'll make sure the cameras are shut off wherever we're going and I'm going to have your back." Clarke opened her mouth to protest, because she had  _showed_  Murphy the text, and he  _knew_  that whoever it was on the other end of the phone was saying that she needed to come alone. "Don't fucking start with me, Clarke. The fact that I'm stupid enough to drive you there is one thing—I'm not letting your get killed as well."

"I'm not gonna get killed!" Clarke protested.

"Clarke!" Murphy snapped as they came to a stop at a red light. "We don't know what this mess is, but it's not a stretch to assume that it's involved with all this bullshit that has gone down with Cage and someone _has died_ , Clarke. Jasper did. And now Octavia is  _missing_. So excuse me if I'm not sending in someone I love onto the  _docks_ —where people are murdered on the fucking  _regular_ —by themselves!" There was an angry toot from behind their car, someone impatient because the light had turned green and they still hadn't moved. Clarke swallowed hard as she looked over at Murphy, and she realized that his hands were shaking around the steering wheel. He took in a deep breath and his eyes flicked toward the rear view mirror, narrowing slightly before accelerating forward.

Clarke felt more and more nervous, the closer they got to the docks, and just before they turned down the road that lead toward the wire fences that appeared to be chained shut, her phone vibrated with another message.

**_Beside the departures office._ **

"Should I say I'm not alone?" Clarke asked, thumb pressing firmly against the side of her phone.

"No," Murphy stated. "I'll park and you get out to meet whoever the fuck this is. Don't let the person get within four feet of you, don't take your eyes off them, don't turn your back on them." As Murphy turned the car and started driving toward the fences of the dock, he pointed at the glove box. "There's a gun in there, keep it in the back of your jeans. I would have brought a holster if we had had more time to be prepared. You know how to shoot, don't get nervous and fuck anything up."

"Right," Clarke breathed heavily through her teeth. She pulled at her hair again before reaching for the glove box, opening it up and looking inside at the gun that was laying there. She swallowed hard as the car slowed to a stop and when she looked up, she saw that they were stopped in front of a wire fence, and Murphy looked over at her as he reached for his belt buckle.

"I need to open the gates," he told her. "Stay in the car." She wasn't too sure what entrace way they were at, but it definitely wasn't the main entrance that Clarke had drive past a several  _thousand_  times given how long she had been living in the city. She watched Murphy in the bright headlights of the car as he walked to a little box hanging from the fence that Clarke hadn't paid attention to, and she saw it was a lock box type of thing. He tapped a few numbers into it and then a gate was sliding open and then Murphy was walking back to the car. "The gun, Clarke," he sounded impatient as he got back into the drivers seat and put his seat belt back on before driving forward. Clarke took the gun out of the glove box and closed it, leaning back in her seat and tightening her fingers around the weapon as they drove into the dark area.

Murphy didn't say anything else as they drove towards the departures office, which he seemed to know the location of very well for someone whose work had nothing to with imported and exported goods. When Murphy parked up, Clarke glanced around, looking for some other car, but she couldn't see anything. It was completely dark, other than a dim light that was glowing from just above the office. There was another long building in front of them and then a few big shipping containers stacked on top of each other in a L shape, effectively boxing them in.

"This is..." Clarke didn't really know how to describe the uncomfortable feeling in her stomach right now.

"We're trapped," Murphy muttered. "Pretty much everywhere you go, you're boxed in, it's like fucking Tetris."

"That's why this is an ideal place for someone to pick," Clarke murmured.

"And this is why this is a dangerous as fuck place to agree to," Murphy replied, looking over at her with narrow eyes. Clarke was about to say something—she wasn't sure what, because she was really starting to regret agreeing to this—but then her phone vibrated.

**_I told you to come alone._ **

_He's staying in the car._

**_Prove it._ **

"They can see me," Clarke said quietly. "They must be here."

"Of course they are," Murphy replied. "They set the meeting place, they would be fucking idiots not to come here and scope out the place." Clarke pursed her lips together again and nodded and looked down at her hands, at the gun in one and the cellphone in the other. "Get out, Clarke," Murphy said, his voice not unkind as he reached out and squeezed her shoulder briefly. "You've got this."

* * *

"Somethings going on," Raven stated as she stalked into Bellamy's office, slamming the door shut behind her and drawing the eyes of Bellamy, Lincoln and Shaw.

"Yeah, Raven, we're aware," Shaw's eyebrows pulled as he looked over at Raven, looking completely confused as to what it was Raven was worried about at this  _exact_ moment, since they were already partway through the crisis.

"No,  _somethings_  going on," Raven repeated as she reached the desk where Bellamy was. "Murphy left for food over half an hour ago and he hasn't even picked up the first lot food yet, because the pizza order is still tracking," she lifted her phone and waved it at the trio, showing that the pizza order was waiting to be picked up. "And I checked your room, since Clarke said she was going back for  _another_  nap, but she's not there, so I think—"

"You think she's gone with Murphy?" Bellamy slid off the desk where he had been sitting on the corner of, and his eyebrows pulled together in frown as he looked over at Lincoln. "Did she say anything about this to you?"

"I wouldn't have let her go out alone, Bell," Lincoln replied firmly. "You know that." Bellamy looked back at Raven with narrow eyes.

"Call Murphy.  _Now_ ," he growled. "Don't even bother with Clarke, she won't answer."

"I can track their phones," Monty spoke up from where he head appeared behind from Raven, having followed her in when he had seen her storming upstairs and toward Bellamy's office.

"Start that, but Raven, call Murphy," Bellamy stated, trying to keep his voice even, but it was clear to Lincoln, who was right next to him, it was clear that it was taking a lot for him to keep it that way. Bellamy's hands looked as though they were shaking from where he had curled them into fists, his attention focused completely on Raven as she tapped her thumb across her screen and then lifted it to her ear. It wasn't just Bellamy watching her, all eyes in the room were on her, other than Monty, who was completely focused on his laptop. Raven made a face and pulled her phone away from her ear.

"Rang until voice mail," she muttered, and tapped her phone again, lifting it back to her ear. The air in the room was tense and then suddenly Raven's expression changed. "Murphy! We  _know_  you're with Clarke!" Bellamy was pushing off his desk and stalking over to Raven, snatching the phone out of her hand and holding it to his ear.

"Get her back here, Murphy, get her back here right now," Bellamy's voice left no room for argument.

"Yeah, uh, that's going to be a bit difficult, boss," Murphy didn't sound happy about that fact either, but he couldn't be less happy than Bellamy was.

"Where are you two? I'm coming there," Bellamy fought to keep his voice controlled but from the looks that were exchanged between Raven and Lincoln, he had a feeling that he wasn't doing the best job at that.

"Uh..." Murphy trailed off and Bellamy's body snapped, a fist flying forward and splintering the wood of the door behind Raven. To Raven's credit, she didn't even flinch, although there was a sharp intake of breath.

"Murphy. I am  _not_  fucking around with you. My sister is gone and you've taken my woman somewhere and if you don't tell me  _where_  in the next twenty seconds, I'm going to kill you myself," Bellamy's voice was steel.

"We're at the docks," Murphy responded without another moment of hesitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please make sure you leave a comment! They're incredibly appreciated and they help keep me writing xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter up, beautiful people!   
> A bit quicker than expected, but I was feeling inspired! Hope you enjoy it :)  
> Unedited for now, as per usual.

"I swear to fucking  _god_ , I'm going to kill them. Both of them. I don't even give a shit that Murphy is a good fuck, I'm going to kill him," Raven was growling under her breath as the SUV rounded the corner to the back gates of the dock, where they always entered when they needed to come by. They had shipments that came in and went out often, but there were people on Bellamy's payroll here at the docks that ensured that those moved smoothly and were never held up by customs.

"At least she didn't go off by herself," Shaw grunted from beside Raven, and Raven just shot him a glare as she looked toward the front seat. Lincoln was driving and Bellamy was in the passenger seat with one hand wrapped around his gun and the other wrapped around the curved handle of his knife. He looked about as wired as she was, ready to spring out of the vehicle and attack the first person who approached them. Shaw was the calmest in the car, by far, because even if Lincoln was doing a good job at remaining outwardly calm, it was obvious in the way that his fingers were twitching and the nerve in his cheek kept jumping that he was right on the edge as well.

Understandably.

Bellamy knew where his woman was.

They still had no idea where Lincoln's was.

"He said they were by the departures office," Raven's words were clipped as they slowed in front of the gates. Shaw was the one who got out, without any comment in the car, to punch in the code and was then quickly moving back to the car. The SUV moved through the gates silently, Lincoln knowing exactly where to go, and when they made a turn at the end of a narrow, make shift road, they caught the back end of Murphy's car.

"There!" Bellamy spoke for the first time since they had gotten into the car, jabbing his finger in the direction of Murphy's car and Lincoln pressed his foot firmly onto the breaks, quickly turning off the headlights. He pulled off the side of the narrow roadway, parking alongside bright orange shipping containers, and all four in the car got out. "Shaw, Raven, I want you two heading around the back, one on the right, one on the left," Bellamy's voice was quiet but authoritative as he pointed up ahead to the departures office. "Lincoln and I are going straight in."

"Do you really think that's the best—"

"If she had been intending to hurt Clarke, she would have done that by now," Bellamy snapped, cutting Shaw off. "And Murphy is in the car watching them anyone, she's not stupid enough to think that we wouldn't be coming for her." Lincoln nodded, and Raven started moving to the right, leaving it up to Shaw to take the left. He didn't bother trying to say anything else, heading around to the left and Lincoln paused as he waited for Bellamy to stride forward, taking the lead. They weren't announcing their presence but they weren't trying to hide it either. Lincoln and Bellamy kept close to the wall, walking quietly in between the car and the office until they got to the drivers door, where Murphy was intently looking forward.

Bellamy rapped his knuckles on the glass of the closed window, and it would have been satisfying to see Murphy jump in surprise, but he didn't. His lips were pursed and his face looked even more pale than usual, but he knew that they were there as he opened his door gently, and Bellamy  _knew_  that Murphy would have seen their shadows and heard the car in the distance, because Murphy wouldn't have been one of his best men if he didn't know how to be completely aware of his surroundings at all times.

"Where are they?" Bellamy asked, his voice low.

"There," Murphy pointed to a gap between two of the shipping containers directly in his line of sight, and Bellamy jutted his chin forward.

"The next time we go to the gym," he said with a growl. "You and I are going three rounds in the ring." Murphy pressed his lips firmly together, and even in the dim lighting, both Lincoln and Bellamy could see the way his throat convulsed as he swallowed hard before jerking his head in a nod. Bellamy looked in the direction that Murphy had pointed, and he could make out two figures in the dark, and Clarke's blonde hair, and neither of them seemed to be aware that there were four more people in the area, and Bellamy clenched his fingers firmly around his gun and his knife to stop himself from charging forward.

"There's no one else here," Raven appeared silently from their right. "She's here completely alone." Shaw appeared a moment later, not quite as silent as Raven but close, and he shook his head.

"Nothing. Can't find any surveillance equipment, no cars in the close vicinity and no people," he looked confused, which was similar to how the rest of them were feeling.

Because Charmaine Diyoza was not an idiot, but what she was doing seemed stupid.

"Alright," Bellamy exhaled heavily through his nose. "Lincoln and I are going in. The rest of you stay back—as soon as you see us walking back, I want you to turn the car on, Murphy, just in case we need to make a quick getaway."

"Well, everything was going smoothly until you showed up," Murphy muttered and Bellamy looked back over at with raised eyebrows, as though  _daring_  him to say something else, but Murphy wisely kept his mouth shut, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back into his seat. They had only actually been at the docks alone for about fifteen minutes—given how quickly Raven had realized that something was wrong, and then how fast Lincoln had driven across town—but Bellamy knew that a lot of information could be exchanged in that short amount of time. Bellamy could hear Lincoln's breathing quickening the closer they got, and Charmaine noticed them first, smirking as she looked up and turned to face them, not looking at all surprised, and Bellamy guessed that she had known they had been there the whole time, she had just been pretending to be unaware.

"Bellamy," Charmaine dipped her head in a nod at him. Clarke's pressed her lips together and her eyes widened, but she managed to keep a relatively neutral face as her eyes flicked between Bellamy and Lincoln before looking back at Charmaine.

"I didn't tell them I was coming here," she began and Charmaine just shook her head with an amused, calculating smirk on her face, head tipped to the side as she looked at the two men.

"What do you know about Octavia?" Lincoln spoke up for the first time, voice still quiet, like it was normally, but there was a hard edge to it. Clarke's face softened as she looked at him.

"She's got a picture—proof that she knows where Vee is," she said quietly and Bellamy's eyes snapped back to Charmaine.

"What do you know? Where the fuck is my sister?" Bellamy snapped, barely able to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing her arm. He knew that that wouldn't get them anywhere, but part of him wished it was ten years ago—hell, even  _five_  years ago—when he didn't quite have his temper quite as under control—and he did have more of a tendency to lash out. Although, even then, he couldn't bring himself to lay his hands on a woman.

"You know Cage has a hard on for you," Charmaine replied easily, not seeming at all bothered by the fact that was out numbered and that she was  _way_  outside of her territory.

"Cage took Octavia?" Lincoln's voice rose in volume and he gritted his teeth, but then his eyes widened and he grabbed at Bellamy's arm. "Bell—what he did to Jasper, now he's taking Octavia—"

"He's not gonna kill your girl like he did with that computer boy," Charmaine rolled her eyes, as though they weren't discussing the death of a  _person_. A kid that had been bubbly and full of life and  _alive_  one minute and then  _dead_  and on display in the middle of a park. Clarke felt a little sick, but she didn't say anything, because she knew it wouldn't achieve anything. "He just wants to make you sweat." Bellamy narrowed his eyes, because Cage had been making trouble for too long now, taking his sister wasn't just some simple tactic to make him  _sweat_. But then Lincoln spoke up.

"Let me see the picture," Lincoln demanded, moving so that he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Bellamy, staring down at Charmaine. Charmaine had her phone in her hand and she lifted it up, tapping the screen so that it lit up and Bellamy noted in a simple skim of his eyes that it  _definitely_  wasn't her personal phone, it was a burner phone that didn't even have a passcode on it, and then she was holding it up and Bellamy sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

It was Octavia alright, but she didn't look anywhere near as good as she would have when she had been taken just that morning.

It felt a lot longer, but it really had just been that morning.

She had a black piece of fabric wrapped around her face and shoved in her mouth to stop her from making any noise, and her hair looked matted from sweat. At least, Bellamy hoped that it was sweat, as opposed to anything else, because there was a smear of blood on her cheek and there was obvious swelling under her left eye that was going to turn into a nasty bruise. Other than that though, she seemed fine, glaring defiantly at the person who was taking the picture, which made her brother and lover feel better. Bellamy bit back a growl as his eyes flashed up to Charmaine.

"Where is she?!"

"I never said I knew  _where_  she was, just that I could help find her, that I knew something about her going missing," Charmaine replied easily and Clarke let out an annoyed huff through her nose.

"We're not interested in this cryptic  _bullshit_!" Bellamy snapped. "What do you  _want_? Because all we want is my sister back now, so if you've got something that you want, hurry the fuck up and spit it out so we can start figuring out how to move forward from here, or else I'm ringing McCreary right now and telling him that you're running some kind of game in  _my territory_." For the first time since seeing Charmaine this evening, there was a shift on her face, the corners of her mouth tightening at the name of her boss and her eyebrows pulling together a little.

"I want McCreary's position," she said bluntly and Lincoln's body jerked beside him and Clarke frowned in confusion. "I will help you get back your sister, and then I want you to help me take over McCreary's household." Bellamy pursed his lips together as he stared at her, knowing that what she was asking him without explicitly  _saying it_ , was that she wanted him to kill McCreary.

Someone that was part of an alliance that had been around for longer than Bellamy had been alive.

But it was  _Octavia_.

"We're gonna go back to my place and we can talk there," Bellamy said, his voice leaving no room for discussion. Charmaine seemed to see that because she didn't argue or press her agenda any further, dipping her head in a nod. "And Diyoza?" Bellamy arched an eyebrow at her. "If you  _ever_  message my woman again and drag her down to the docks instead of coming through  _me_ , your body's never going to leave the docks, you understand?" Charmaine's lips curled in a small smirk as her eyes flicked between Bellamy and Clarke before nodding again.

* * *

The drive back to the Blake manor was silent and tense. Murphy took Raven and Shaw back in his car, and Clarke had made a move to get into his SUV but Bellamy had gripped her elbow and dragged her after him toward the SUV that he had come in. Lincoln didn't make a move to get in the drivers seat, practically shoving Charmaine into the back seat, his eyes on her the whole time as he got in next to her. Clarke got into the front passenger seat and kept her mouth set in a flat line as Bellamy got into the drivers seat and turned on the engine of the car.

It didn't take long to get across the town, making their way up the long winding driveway to the manor, parking both of the cars in the large garage and then piled out of the two cars. Lincoln had a hand wrapped around Charmaine's upper arm as he lead her into the house, and Murphy seemed to make himself inconspicuous very quickly, which was a smart move on his behalf. Clarke followed after Raven and Shaw as they headed into the house, Bellamy bringing up the rear. Charmaine glanced around when she got inside, and it was a practiced, casual look, but Bellamy knew that she was looking for the exits, taking everything in quickly before looking ahead again.

"Upstairs," Bellamy said shortly and Lincoln nodded. Shaw walked off ahead, while Raven held back, standing firm on Charmaine's other side, and Clarke knew that they were going up to the third floor.

Most gangsters had basements that they 'interrogated' people in.

Bellamy had a converted attic.

They all walked up to the second floor and were passing by Bellamy's room when he stopped and reached out to grab Clarke's shoulder, forcing her to stop. Lincoln kept walking, determined to get Charmaine upstairs, but Raven slowed down and looked over her shoulder at them.

"I'll be up soon," he said shortly and Raven nodded, eyes straying to Clarke for a moment before she turned around and carried on after Lincoln and Charmaine. Bellamy pushed open his bedroom door and Clarke stepped in first, Bellamy closing the door firmly behind him, looking down at the ground as he took in a few deep breaths. Clarke chewed down on her bottom lip as she tugged at the hem of her shirt and then crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at Bellamy, waiting for him to make the first move. But he just stayed quiet, and it was unnerving. She let out a heavy breath and scratched at the side of her face, unable to stop fidgeting, and then opened her mouth to say something, but Bellamy's head snapped up as soon as her lips parted, as though he knew that she had just been about to talk. "Don't," he muttered.

"What?!" Clarke snapped, annoyance flaring up.

"You're going to defend what you did," Bellamy snapped back.

"I  _was_!" Clarke took a step closer to him, shoulders tensing as the annoyance shifted to anger. "And I would fucking do it again!" Bellamy's lips parted but all that came out was a whoosh of air as he closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temple, pressing hard against his forehead as he tried to calm himself down. Clarke clenched her teeth together and waited again, knowing that they were both walking a fine line here.

They had fought a hundred times before, both of them knowing how to push one anothers buttons to get tempers to flare, but they had gotten better over the years, the longer they had been together and the older that they gotten, the less it happened.

But this was different, and they both knew it.

"Clarke," Bellamy began, his voice shaking a little from how much anger he was trying to contain. "My sister is  _missing_. You were there with her when she was  _taken_  this morning. And then you decide to run off without telling me?  _Anything_  could have happened!"

"I was trying to  _help_ , Bellamy! And I did help! She text me! She might have waited another day or so before messaging you or Lincoln or Raven or whoever, and that would be a whole other day that Vee is out there! At least now she's here and she's going to help us!" Clarke cried.

"She isn't just  _going_  to help us, Clarke!" Bellamy snapped. "She's got her own agenda here."

"Yeah, so?!" Clarke made a face. "Who fucking cares? Everyone in this world has their own agenda—being with you and living in your world has taught me that better anyone else ever could! We just need to use that agenda to further our own, and right now? Our agenda is _getting Octavia back_!" Bellamy let out a frustrated growl and tugged at his beard, glaring at Clarke before stepping forward and closing the last few inches between them, his hands like vices around her shoulders as he held her against him.

"Clarke—she's asking me to kill someone. You know that. And I would. I  _will_ , if that's what it takes. Fuck, I will kill  _everyone_  who gets in between me and anyone I love, you  _know_  that. But I need you to understand the type of person that you just went off and saw. Someone who is willing to trade secrets and murder the person that they had been loyal to for years now," Bellamy's voice softened a little as he saw Clarke's eyes widened. "She's a dangerous person, Clarke, and...If something had happened to you as well..." he took in a deep breath and her blue eyes glittered with tears and his words sunk in. "Clarke, you can't ask me not to be angry about this. You can't ask that of me."

"I—" Clarke cut herself off, trying to find the right words. "I just—" Bellamy just regarded her with quiet, unyielding eyes and she let out a heavy breath through her nose. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "I just wanted to help. I knew that we had nothing else to go on, and we need to find Vee."

"Next time, come to me. We're a team, princess. We do this together," Bellamy told her.

"Even though you just want me locked up in some tower, away from the world?" Clarke asked, just a smidge of sarcasm finding itself in her words.

"I want you  _safe_. That's what I  _want_ ," Bellamy corrected her and Clarke gave him a small smile. It wasn't the first time they had argued over that, and it wouldn't be the last time, and they both knew it.

Clarke reached forward and pressed her lips against Bellamy, a bit more forcefully than she usually would. Bellamy returned the pressure, hands shifting down from her shoulders, over her biceps, stopping at her elbows for a brief moment before dropping to her hips and squeezing. His fingers were pressing hard through the hoodie that she was wearing, hot and hard, and when he pulled at the hoodie and her shirt and then his fingers were against her skin, it felt like a brand, possessive and scalding.

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself if something happened to you," Bellamy whispered as his hands tugged at her shirt and the hoodie, and was then roughly pulling them over her head in one swift motion, leaving her in her sports bra and leggings, with her sneakers still on her feet. "Some mornings you're all that keeps me going, Clarke, even with everyone and everything else in my life." Her eyes widened and her stomach dipped at the admission, but then he was leaning in again and their lips were pressed together and his hands were at the curves of her side, guiding her backwards, thumbs pressing into her ribs.

"Bellamy..." Clarke breathed as she sat down on the edge of the bed that she had been sleeping in just a few hours ago. He didn't say anything as he pulled at her sports bra, taking it over her head and then throwing it to the floor before kneeling down and taking off her shoes and socks. Then he pressed two fingers against her shoulder, pushing her back until she was laying on the bed and he stripped her out of her leggings and underwear and rid himself of his own clothes in record time.

And then in one swift motion, he hitched her further up on the bed, one elbow resting on the bed beside Clarke's head while he guided himself between her thighs with his other hand and was then pressing himself inside her.

" _Fuck_!" Clarke cried out, hands going to Bellamy's back, fingernails scratching at his tanned skin as he filled her. "Fuck—Bell!" The hand that wasn't supporting his weight smoothed its way down her side, briefly touching her breast and his thumb flicking over her nipple before sliding down her side, pausing at her hip before reaching the back of her thigh, hooking behind her knee and hitching it up so that it curled over his own hip, providing a deeper angle and Clarke's breathing changed, letting out a squeak. "Oh my god!" She cried out, back arching, breasts pressing up against Bellamy's chest.

"I love you, Clarke," Bellamy's voice was low and gravelly as he leaned forward, burying his face in her neck, and biting down on her ivory skin, making her shiver underneath him. "Fuck, I love you so much." The hand under her leg was so tight that she was sure that she was going to have bruises left there tomorrow, but she didn't care.

She needed this.

They both did.

Bellamy's pace was brutal and unrelenting, his teeth pressed against the soft skin of her neck and his tongue warm as he left his mark, and Clarke's nails scratched down his back, leaving raised red lines in their wake as she felt her orgasm drawing nearer. He could obviously feel it too, in the way that she was canting her hips, chasing after the feeling that was  _so close_.

Clarke came first, and Bellamy wasn't far after her, both of them stilling and breathing hard. When he rolled off, his eyes were softer than they had been before, but his expression still gave away how he was feeling.

Scared. Worried. Hurt.

"I'm sorry," Clarke repeated her earlier sentiment, her voice a whisper in the silent room.

"I can't worry about you while Octavia is out there," Bellamy told her. "I just...I need to focus on her, and I can't think about you running off and putting yourself in danger." He rubbed a hand over his face and let out a weary sigh. "I know that you were just trying to help—and you're right, you did. It probably would have taken Diyoza a lot longer to reach out to one of us than it did for her to reach out to you. But I need you to be safe," he looked over at her and Clarke nodded. She took in a deep breath as she reached out and linked her fingers together with his.

"I'm not gonna sneak out again, I promise," Clarke told him quietly. "But I'm not breakable, and Octavia is my friend too. So you have to promise to let me help in any way that I can." Bellamy stared at her, expression tight, and it was clear that he didn't want to make that commitment, but then he relented, dipping his head in a small nod.

"I promise."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Another update! Sorry, this took a bit longer than usual, I've got a hectic life at the moment. As usual, not edited, will be done later.

It seemed as though Charmaine was in a  _very_  talkative mood.

To the point where it seemed like a bit of a ridiculous idea, taking her upstairs to the third floor, which was specifically used for  _persuasion_ , was a bit of a waste of time when Charmaine seemed ready to just spill everything that she knew.

Of course, they waited to get into the really good stuff until Bellamy got there, clothes and hair smoothed out and no longer sex-rumpled, but there was a knowing look in Shaw's eyes as he stepped into the room. Charmaine was strapped to the chair in the middle of the room, and she looked as though she was exactly where she wanted to be, with Lincoln directly behind her, his hands resting on the metal frame of the chair, fingers curled and biceps bulging like he wanted to rip the frame in two and then start working on Charmaine.

Which Bellamy could understand.

He felt the same way.

This woman knew where his sister was, and she was smiling and relaxing in the chair as though she didn't have a care in the world.

"Where's Octavia?" Bellamy asked, getting straight to the point. Charmaine gave him a lazy look, fingers twitching a little, and if she wasn't tied up, Bellamy didn't doubt that she wouldn't be lighting up a cigarette and puffing away as though she had every right.

"I already told you, Blake. I don't know. When I messaged your woman, I said that I could help find her, and I told  _you_  that I knew some things that would help you find her, but I didn't say that I knew where she was," Charmaine replied with an arched eyebrow. "I really would have thought you would have listened better. Aren't you supposed to be the wise leader out of all of them? Who doesn't just run half cocked into shit?" There was definitely an insult laced into the comments, Bellamy could hear it in her voice, but he didn't comment on it, just watched her steadily, and eventually, she let out an annoyed huff. "I know who has her."

" _Who_?!" Lincoln demanded, and obviously she hadn't been expecting him to talk, because her shoulders jerked a little, caught off guard, head turning to the side as though she was going to try and turn back to look at Lincoln, even though the way that she was strapped wouldn't allow that. But then she narrowed her eyes and focused back on Bellamy.

"Cage Wallace.  _He_  took your sister," she said evenly and Bellamy's breath caught in his throat. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him—Shaw, Raven, Lincoln and Charmaine—and he was glad that he had long ago mastered a poker face, but that name had thrown him through a loop.

On one hand, he wasn't surprised. At all. If he had to pick someone who had the balls and the stupidity and the arrogance to just barge into Bellamy's territory— _again_ —and  _take his fucking sister_ , then it would have to be Cage.

But on the other hand, Cage  _had_  to know what this would do. Any semblance of a truce that they had was over. And while Cage seemed to be quicker to pull the trigger than Bellamy was, Bellamy had more people on his side, and he was smarter than Cage, and if he needed to be, he could be just as lethal.

"Cage," he hissed out.

"I mean, it would have been his men, Cage wouldn't have been the one to actually come to the juice bar—"

"How'd you know where they were taken from?" Lincoln demanded.

"Other than the fact than some girl being snatched from a busy shop in the middle of the day? Don't act like I'm an idiot, we all know police scanners are easy to come by, and I'm good with a computer," Charmaine paused and then acted in an over-exaggerated fashion, widening her eyes and letting her lips parted. "Oh, and there's the fact that Cage and McCreary are working together, and given I'm McCreary's second in command, anything that he knows, I know." Lincoln's eyes widened as he looked up at Bellamy, and honestly, that was the biggest surprise.

He hadn't thought that another household would be involved in all of this.

That knocked him back a step and Charmaine obviously saw that because her smirk grew, thinking that she had the upper hand, but Bellamy ignored her, looking over at Raven. Raven had her arms crossed tightly over her chest, eyebrows pulled together as she stared back at Bellamy. Then his eyes moved to Lincoln's, and his second was clearly clenching his teeth so hard to stop himself from saying anything that there was a tic jumping in his cheek.

"Talk," Bellamy snapped. "From the beginning, don't miss anything out,  _now_."

Paxton McCreary's discontent with the alliance had been growing for a long time. He had been wanting to make more moves, be given more freedom, allowed to make big decisions without consulting with the other households. It wasn't as though they were all on a leash and had to discuss every single decision that they made with one another, but when it came to bigger ones, generally they would consult each other, make sure no toes were being stepped on, that there wasn't going to be some ripple on effect. That was how things had been as long as Bellamy could remember, back when it had been his father in charge. It wasn't about asking permission, it was about being aware of everyone else in the alliance. When Cage had left the alliance so abruptly and things had seemed to work out just fine for him, McCreary had been making more and more noise about following suit.

Charmaine had said that she hadn't been too fussed either way, she saw the pros and cons of both options, although she had been telling McCreary to wait it out a little bit longer because she felt as though something big was brewing between Cage and the Blake household and they should watch it play out. But apparently McCreary had gotten impatient and he wanted things to happen  _now_ , and so he had reached out to Cage, and Cage had made some strategic decisions and decided to let McCreary know that he was moving against Blake.

By kidnapping Octavia.

"Then  _call_  McCreary," Lincoln demanded from behind Charmaine, and to her credit, she didn't even flinch at the abrupt sound. "You're his second, surely if you ask him where Vee is, he'll tell you."

"Cage isn't in a fucking idiot," Charmaine rolled her eyes and shook her head. "He didn't tell us McCreary where he's keeping your girl—he didn't even tell us when he was going to make a move on her, just that he was  _going_  to do it." Bellamy's eyebrows pulled together and Raven's lips parted as her eyes darted over to her boss.

"Bell..." she began softly.

"So you knew?" Bellamy asked, his voice dangerously low. "When we were meeting in Boston, you  _knew_?" Charmaine was smart enough now to keep her mouth shut, and Raven looked over at Shaw, whose eyes were wide as he waited for either Lincoln or Bellamy to lash out. Bellamy's teeth were gritted and the chair was creaking under the pressure from Lincoln's grip, but neither of them said anything.

Until Bellamy spun around and kicked out, and a wooden table that was pressed against one of the walls went flying, tipping over and soaring to the other side of the room, everything that had been on top of it scattering across the floor.

Raven simply stepped out of the way, while Shaw jumped a bit. Lincoln and Charmaine weren't in the danger zone, but Charmaine looked a bit shaken, and if Bellamy wasn't so angry, he would be glad that they finally seemed to be getting through to her.

"Okay, fine," Bellamy hissed out as he lunged forward and put his hands on either side of the chair, his face only inches away from Raven. "You don't know where my sister is, fine, let's say I believe you. But you have to know something. There's no fucking way that you chose to come all the way out here to show me a fucking photo and ask for my help. You're not that  _stupid_ , Diyoza. And not when you get my woman involved." Charmaine nodded her head once. "So what the fuck do you have to offer?" She narrowed her eyes a little, wiggling her hands in the restraints, obviously trying to be subtle about it but Bellamy picked up on every movement that she was making.

"You think you could get me a glass of water?" She asked, clearly trying to regain some control.

" _No_ ," Bellamy responded, not moving from his position right in front of her. Charmaine blinked at him, not saying anything for a long moment, waiting him out, but he didn't move, and he didn't say anything, not even repeating his earlier demand, because he knew she knew what he was waiting for.

"Fine," Charmaine said through gritted teeth. "I know where some of Cage's safe houses are, not just the warehouses, which are the only ones  _you_  will know. Maybe she's in one of those ones. I might be able to get us in to them."

"Not good enough," Bellamy responded immediately. "Nowhere _fucking near_  good enough. You're asking me to kill McCreary, who is still part of an alliance that my father, and his father before him had been a part of. Doing something like that, without any  _proof_  of his involvement, would put my whole household at risk,  _everyone_  that I love. So even if I get Octavia back, I would no longer have any protection, and I would have to watch every single move I make, because  _you're_  not offering me anything in return."

"I am—"

"There's  _more_ , and we all know it," Bellamy stated, voice like steel. Charmaine's lips twitched angrily, no longer looking anywhere near as composed as she did before. "You want to take McCreary's position without doing any of the dirty work, you want to run a household and be the bitch in charge—" Charmaine's flinch at the word was seen throughout the room, because it was spat out by Bellamy like it was something vile. "—Then you need to be making some big decisions." He finally straightened up, looking over at Lincoln and jerking his head toward the door. "It's been a long day. We all need to get some rest." Lincoln opened his mouth to argue, but Bellamy just gave him a hard look before glancing back over at Raven and Shaw. "You two stay in here with her. Take shifts with Monty and Murphy." There was a nod from Raven, and then Lincoln and Bellamy left the room. Lincoln kept tight-lipped until the door was firmly shut and they were down the stairs and on the second floor before stopping short.

"What the  _fuck_ , Bell?!" Lincoln snapped. "She knows more! She can help us find Octavia. It's been  _hours_ , you  _know_  things happen—"

"Yeah, Lincoln, I  _know_!" Bellamy barely stopped himself from shouting. "I know what happens, the longer someone is kidnapped!" Lincoln snapped his teeth together to himself from saying anything else, because Bellamy knew better than anyone the things that happened when a kidnapping went wrong. Or went right, depending on what outcome the kidnappers were trying to achieve in the first place, given what had happened to Aurora Blake. "Monty is still trying to find out what he can online, Raven and Shaw are going to work Diyoza over because if it's you or me that do that, we're probably gonna go too fucking far." His words sounded rational and well thought out, and his reasoning was sound, Lincoln could hear that, but it was clear that he was feeling just as unhinged as Lincoln, because the whites of his eyes kept flashing and he was grinding his teeth and the vein in his neck was pulsing.

"Okay," Lincoln managed to say. "Okay. But...I'm not getting any rest. There's no fucking way I'm going to be able to sleep right now."

"Fucking aye," Bellamy nodded grimly. "I'm just—I need to check on Clarke, and Abby and the others, and then I'll meet you down in the gym. We can go a few rounds in the ring?" Lincoln nodded, but Bellamy was already walking away, toward his room. He didn't bother knocking, but he was quiet when he opened the door, because it was after midnight now, and Clarke would probably be asleep. The curtains were closed and the room was dark and he didn't want to turn on the light and disturb her, so he took out his phone and flicked on the torch, shining it at the ground so that there was just enough light to get him to the bed and see that Clarke was  _actually_  there and she hadn't run off on some half-cocked plan again.

Except she wasn't the only one in the bed.

Madi was there with her, sleeping on Clarke's usual side of the bed, while Clarke was on Bellamy's side, on arm wrapped protectively around the younger girl.

Despite everything that had happened that day, Bellamy couldn't help his small smile.

It was tired and it stretched uncomfortably on his face and it dropped almost as soon as it appeared, but it had been there for a moment.

Bellamy sat down on the edge of the bed beside Clarke, stroking his fingers through her hair and leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek. He was happy that she was comfortable enough in his space that she had invited Madi into it, even if it meant that he was going to have to crash in one of the spare bedrooms if he  _did_  try to catch any sleep tonight. He shone the torch a little higher to make sure the blanket was pulled up over at Madi's shoulders and was about to get up from the bed when Clarke made a small noise under her breath and rolled half over. Bellamy paused, watching her face carefully, and a moment later, she cracked open a sleepy eye.

"Hey," Bellamy whispered, making sure to keep his voice even lower than usual, given Madi was asleep right there. "I was just checking in on you guys. Go back to sleep."

"Did you get anything from Charmaine?" Clarke asked, getting straight to it, and even with her sleep-thick voice, the determination was clear. Bellamy pursed his lips for a moment and then shrugged a shoulder.

"We're working on it. Nothing is going to happen tonight. We'll talk in the morning, okay?" Bellamy told her softly and Clarke nodded, eyelids heavy. Bellamy leaned forward to give her another kiss, this time on the forehead, and she reached out to touch his cheek with her fingertips.

"You need to make sure you get some sleep as well, okay?" Clarke mumbled as well.

"Even though my bed's been taken over?" Bellamy gave her a half smile as he glanced over at Madi. Clarke turned her head and looked at Madi, sighing.

"I'm going to tell her everything, Bell. You know I didn't want to, but...Things have changed now, and she needs to know what's going on," Clarke said as she looked back at Bellamy. "I need you to be okay with that." Bellamy nodded his head once, no hesitation, and Clarke appreciated that. "She won't tell anyone, you can trust her."

"You trust her, so I trust her," Bellamy said, giving her arm a squeeze and Clarke gave him an appreciative smile.

* * *

Even after an hour in the ring, there was still angry, hopeless tension in both Bellamy and Lincoln's bodies. They were wearing minimal protective gear and neither of them were pulling their punches, given they knew that the other could take it, and Lincoln's bottom lip was split and bleeding and Bellamy's nose had crusted, half-dried blood underneath it. They were going a bit harder than they usually would, but these weren't normal circumstances. They seemed to mutually decide that it was best to move on from fighting each other and moving onto punching bags.

"I'm gonna fucking  _kill_  Cage," Lincoln growled out with a particularly vicious swing of his arm.

"We should have already," Bellamy's voice was low as he spun his body and landed a kick that made his bag swing to the side. "We knew that he was trading with underage girls. We knew that he was the one who attacked Jasper. Why the  _fuck didn't I kill him sooner_?" Bellamy's voice had risen, with every word and punch that he was landing to the bag. "If I had  _acted_ , rather than taking my  _fucking_  time to get everything in a row and respecting _old boundaries_ —" even through the gloves that he was wearing, and the way that his hands were taped, he knew that he was going to feel the pain from the punches in a few hours time. Lincoln had stopped swinging altogether to watch his boss with dark eyes. "— _Vee would still be fucking safe_!"

"We don't know that," Lincoln grunted and Bellamy let out a wet sounding laugh, swiping the back of his hand across his face, trying to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. "We don't know whose pulling all the strings here."

"Don't try and see more into this, Linc," Bellamy all but snapped. "We know it's Cage. There might have been some retaliation from his second—whoever the fuck that is, because we still don't know  _anything_  about his organisation—but we still should have  _acted_. He has already  _killed_  one of us. And now he has Vee. If something happens to her—"

"Bell!" Raven's voice is sharp from the corner of the home gym and both Bellamy and Lincoln look over at her. She walks over, Monty behind her, holding an iPad tightly in one hand, and Bellamy wipes his hand over his face again, to clear his eyes. "Diyoza has given us the addresses of three different safe houses and Monty has done as much research as he can," she jerked a thumb at Monty, obviously indicating for him to take over. Monty made a face as he turned the iPad around, and it wasn't the first time that Bellamy had thought to himself that they needed to bring another hacker in. Monty was good on computers, better than any of the rest of them, but hacking had been Jasper's job, it had been why he had been brought in. Monty was a quick study and he and Jasper had been good friends, so naturally Monty had picked up on things even though it hadn't been his forté and he had learnt some more things along the way because he  _had_  to.

They really did need to bring someone else in, though. It just still felt too soon to be replacing Jasper.

Especially since they still hadn't gotten revenge for what had  _happened_  to Jasper yet.

"Obviously I'm not as good at covering my tracks as an actual hacker," Monty began slowly. "So I didn't want to go too deep and show our hand, so I just stuck with security cameras from nearby shops and ones that were put in by the council. We'd already had a look at the ones from the juice bar where the girls were this morning when the incident happened, although that had been easy to come by since Sterling had sent them to us." Lincoln was clearly trying to stop himself from huffing impatiently and asking Monty to get to the point, but Bellamy let out a heavy sigh through his nose and Monty nodded his head a couple of times, obviously getting the point. "Anyway, I went through everything I could as fast as I could around each of those four addresses, and I found the van that had taken Octavia from the bar."

"You did?" Lincoln stepped forward.

"It's the one at 84 Bridges Road, in Pismo Beach," Monty replied as he tapped the iPad screen so that they could see the two images that were brought up. One of them was taken just outside the juice bar, time stamped with early yesterday morning, with Octavia caught in the freeze-frame with two big men on either side of her, and the other was a time stamped just a few hours later with a similar dark van.

"They don't have a licence plate," Bellamy couldn't help his voice from being short. "How do you know they're the same vehicle?" He didn't comment on the fact that Pismo Beach was only  _just_  outside the lines of his territory, and to have another household setting up a safe house _so close_  was just an invitation for trouble.

"I mean, we can't be a  _hundred_  percent certain," Monty said but he swiped at the screen, enlarging the two images. "But there's a yellow paint mark here—" Monty jabbed his finger at portion of the front bumper. "And as Octavia was getting dragged into the car, she kicked at the door, and there's a dent in the van in the later shot in the same spot," he pointed a the door, and there was a grim smile from Lincoln at his girl putting up a fight. "Also, once I found it, I tracked it back as far as I could, and it was definitely coming from Los Angeles direction, and at one point—" Monty swiped over the screen again, working quickly given there were three impatient sets of eyes on him. "There was this," he turned the screen back around, and it looked like a video from a traffic camera at a set of lights. The windows of the van were all darkened, so for a moment, it didn't look as though anything was happening, but then suddenly the sliding door of the van was being jerked open and an arm reached out before whoever it was who was trying to escape at the stop light was abruptly being pulled back inside and the door was being slammed shut, and then the van was lurching forward before the light even turned green. Obviously they couldn't make out who the person was, but they  _knew_.

"That's our girl," Bellamy muttered under his breath, glad that his sister wasn't making it easy for her captors, although he wouldn't have expected anything less.

They couldn't spend any more time down here, though, trying to work off excess energy in the name of managing to get some sleep, not now that they had an address to work with. He hadn't been feeling tired to begin with, even though he logically knew that he needed to make sure he was getting some rest so that he didn't drop the ball, because this was something that he  _couldn't_  fuck up on, but now he  _definitely_  wasn't tired.

"Did Diyoza just give these addresses up?" He asked gruffly.

"The addresses, yeah, she was already offering those up when you were in the room," Raven shrugged a shoulder and Bellamy glanced down at her hands, noting that the knuckles of her dominant hand were red and there was a split over one knuckle. "I told her that she needed to find us a way into the safe houses, before Monty found all of this with the addresses that Shaw took down to him, and she wasn't very helpful when it came to that."

"I'm sure you would have persuaded her to come up with  _some_  ideas," Lincoln muttered.

"A couple," Raven jerked her head in a nod. "Told her that we didn't care if it meant revealing that she's turning on McCreary, since people are going to know soon enough anyway, if everything goes to plan. In fact, it would be best if there was something she could do to get McCreary down  _here_ , especially if she wants us to do the dirty work."

"She's asking a lot and not giving much in return," Lincoln muttered.

"If this address is right, though, then she's given us back Octavia," Bellamy pointed out quietly.

" _If_  Vee is still there," Lincoln replied, tight-lipped.

"From what I can see, there's only two exits from the address," Monty said. "And I've looked at cameras from up and down both of those streets—the cameras that didn't have too much security around them, anyway—and I can't see that the van has left. So if Vee was taken there, then she hasn't left in the same van. Hopefully—" Monty made a face. "Hopefully she's still there."

"So we're going to send Diyoza in," Raven said, looking back at Bellamy. "I don't know—make up some bullshit about McCreary sending her in to check in on him and make sure that he's following through with what Cage told him he was going to do. Whatever we want really, she's the one that wants something from us here."

"But we have to be careful," Bellamy clenched his teeth together for a moment, grinding his molars as he thought of worst case scenarios, where his mind always went when they were dealing with something tenuous, especially something that was as delicate as his  _baby sister_. "If Diyoza gets in there and fucks it up—or if she gets in there and then decides that maybe she would be better off flipping on  _us_  and trying to cut some kind of deal with  _Cage_ , then who knows what that's going to mean for Vee?" His heart thudded faster in his chest but he tried to keep his voice even. "We need to think this through, we can't just barge in, but—"

"We can't leave it too long either," Lincoln interrupted. "We  _have_  to move on this before they move her. Who knows what they have planned." Bellamy nodded once and took in a deep breath through his nose, turning away from the three and wiping a hand over his face.

He felt as though he had been keeping it together pretty well, if he was being honest.

His sister had been kidnapped and his woman had been right there as well, and it had been well over twelve hours.

They'd gotten an update from Sterling just before they had realized that Clarke and Murphy had disappeared, advising them there were absolutely no leads when it came to the police looking into Octavia, which wasn't exactly unusual. It wasn't as though they were helping the police in any way, shape or form and it was only really Sterling using the police resources to be looking into Octavia with one or two other people under him going on half truths that he needed to feed them to get them to help him out.

He hated to admit it, but he had been about to snap before Raven had come in an announced that something else had gone wrong, because his focus had been on his  _missing sister_  and the fact that he was _fucking helpless_ , and if Clarke hadn't gone off and met with Diyoza, they would  _still_  be helpless.

He was so lucky to have Clarke.

"How far away is it the safe house from here?" Bellamy asked, still facing away from Lincoln, Monty and Raven.

"We could make it in just over two hours," Raven responded.

"Two and a half if traffic is bad at the most," Monty added.

"Whose in the house right now? Everyone, from the top," Bellamy asked.

"Diyoza, Shaw, Clarke, her girl, Abby, Kane, Murphy," Raven listed off easily, glancing over to Lincoln.

"Atom and Luna," Lincoln added. "And Clarke's friend." Bellamy frowned and turned back around at that.

"That guy?" He arched an eyebrow, trying to find the name. "Finn?"

"Yeah, I don't know," Raven shrugged. "I mean, we kind of went into lock down and he was here with Clarke and we let him stay in one of the spare rooms and he fell asleep and so we figured he could just spend the night. Monty's been making sure to keep an eye on him through the security feed, and he hasn't left his room or anything. I don't care though—I can wake him up and kick him out if you want." Bellamy sighed and looked at his watch.

It was just after three.

He wasn't going to do that to one of Clarke's friends.

"No, it's fine," he sighed, shaking his head. "I just need to know whose going to be here."

"We need everyone," Lincoln stated. "We don't know what we're walking into." Bellamy pursed his lips, because on one hand, he agreed with Lincoln, they were going to have to work out a plan and potentially, they're all going to be needed, because they weren't too sure what they were going up against when it came to Cage, other than the fact that he was impulsive and dangerous.

"I'm not leaving Clarke and her mum and Madi here by themselves," Bellamy muttered. "Because we need to take Marcus."

"Atom can stay," Monty suggested, because he knew that even though he wasn't as strong and fast as the others, but there was no way that Monty was going to be left behind because his strengths were in other areas, while Atom had only been with them for a couple of months now, and was still being broken in.

"Or we could call Roan," Raven murmured and Bellamy narrowed his eyes as he looked over at her. "I'm just saying," she shrugged. "Him and his niece, right? They're both badass, they know what we do, you trust them and Roan likes Clarke, he's not going to let anything happen to her. They know what happened to Octavia because it was just after they left his gym, and he's been messaging me through the day to check in. He'd be happy to help. And it's not like Abby and Clarke are useless, come on," she added and Lincoln was nodding along with her.

"Do it," Bellamy replied before thinking twice, trusting Raven's intuition. "I'm not leaving them here alone," he repeated and Lincoln nodded his head. "Get them here as soon as possible. I want everyone suiting up—everyone in the house, just keep it in house, I don't want to call in anyone else. I want Diyoza in full protective gear and put in with a wire and I want us in four vehicles, her in the back of one with you and Murphy," Bellamy pointed at Raven.

"What's the plan?" Raven asked, her phone already back in her hand, either preparing to call Roan, or preparing to call Murphy and wake him up from wherever he was in the house.

"We'll figure it out on the road," Bellamy snapped, beginning to rip out of his gloves and throwing them on the ground as he began walking out of the gym. "I want us out of here in half an hour."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Let me know what you think x
> 
> Feel free to hit me up on my socials;
> 
> Twitter: CalamitySerene  
> Tumblr: SereneCalamity


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, we have an update! I just want to say sorry in advance if you guys were hoping for an intense action scene in this one, because I am really not the best at that, so I had to play to my strengths! As usual, this will be edited later!

It had been two and a half hours since Clarke had gotten up, and she blew steam off the top of her cup, elbows resting on her knees from where she was sitting on the kitchen table with her feet on one of the chairs. It was going on six in the morning and the sun was starting to come up and she had been obsessively checking her phone every few minutes, even though she had the volume turned all the way up and would hear any notification that would come through.

"Checking that phone isn't going to make time go any faster," a deep voice spoke up from the doorway and Clarke didn't bother to turn around, because Roan had been floating in and out of the kitchen since she had come down from the bedroom.

"I'm aware," her words were clipped.

"Blake has a gym here, right? Let's go down for a session," he suggested.

"I'm fine here," Clarke responded, tone short and inviting no discussion, because she knew that Bellamy and his rest of his people would have arrived at their destination by this point. She knew that they had, because Monty had sent her a coded message fifteen minutes ago telling her that they were going communication dark, which meant that they were close to wherever they were going, so they must be there by now. She wished that it had been Bellamy who had messaged her, but it hardly ever was, there was only ever one or two burner phones that were left on when they were off on one of their missions or whatever they called it, and Monty generally had one.

"Clarke," Roan's voice was firm.

"Roan," Clarke snipped back.

"Clarke," Roan repeated and Clarke let out a huff. She sounded like a child and she knew it, but everything just felt so out of control. Roan didn't say anything again, but then he came properly into the kitchen, until he was standing directly in front of her and she looked up at him with weary eyes. "If you just sit here and think about everything that could go wrong, you're going to drive yourself mad," Roan told her quietly and Clarke sighed, feeling her shoulders slump, knowing that he was right. "I know Blake doesn't want you going into the clinic, I know that you're all in lock down and you're not supposed to leave the estate, but you still need to try and keep yourself busy. Sitting here and watching your phone isn't going to make time go any faster, and maybe I don't know everything that your man and his boys get up to, but I'm guessing that they won't be messaging you for a while."

"I know," Clarke said under her breath, rubbing a hand over her face.

"How about we make breakfast?" Roan suggested. "And then we can go down for a session in the gym?"

"Only if we get to go into the ring," Clarke muttered. "I have a lot of pent up energy." There was a snort from Roan and then a nod, before he moved away from her and toward the fridge. "Mum will be up soon, she's always been an early riser, especially since she's in bed alone..." she trailed off and her eyebrows pulled together. "I don't know if Kane woke her before he left with the others." Roan was beginning to take things out of the fridge as though he was there everyday, and Clarke shook her head before sliding off the table top and moving to join Roan. "Madi could go either way, she doesn't sleep the best when she's not in her bed, but she's also a late sleeper if she doesn't have an alarm going off. What about Emori?"

"She'll be up soon," Roan replied. "She's probably already awake, looking around the place," he waved a finger over his shoulder. "She's never been up here before, so she'll be wanting to look around."

"Okay," Clarke mumbled as she looked at what they had on the bench. There were eggs and bacon and sausages and she knew that there was different types of bread in the pantry to her left. "Well, we'll just make enough for ourselves but we'll leave everything out for them to make themselves breakfast." Roan nodded as he started searching through the cupboards underneath the bench.

"And what about the other one?" He asked.

"The other one?" Clarke frowned as she got out plates and utensils.

"There's a boy here—your friend," Roan replied as he found a frying pan and put it on the counter. "Blake told me that there were four of you in the house." Clarke frowned as she took a paper bag with crusty buns out of the pantry and put them on the bench next to the rest of their food.

"Finn's still here?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah," there was a voice from the doorway and both Roan and Clarke turned around to see Finn standing there. Roan didn't look surprised to see him there, so he must have heard him coming, but Clarke hadn't and she blinked. "I hope that's okay—I just ended up kind of swept up in everything that happened yesterday, and then it was night time, and the girl with the black hair and the perpetually scary expression offered me a bedroom for the night."

"Raven," Clarke gave him a tight smile. "Right." Finn had a confused expression on his face as he looked between Clarke and Roan, and she couldn't exactly blame him, nothing that had happened in the past twenty-four hours had been  _normal_. "Yeah, yeah—of course it's fine that you're still here. There's just...A lot of stuff going on."

"Yeah, I gathered," Finn raised his eyebrows. "I mean, with everything that happened with Octavia yesterday, I understand people freaking out a bit," he pursed his lips and then let out a little laugh. "Although, to be honest, I kind of expected to have to speak with the police or something?" Clarke hummed under her breath, her mind not completely having switched lanes yet, still thinking about Bellamy and his people. But as she was beginning to take out eggs from their carton, there was a sharp elbow to her hip from Roan and when she looked up at him, he gave her a pointed glance before moving to start the sausages and bacon.

"Uh, Raven told them that I wasn't feeling well," Clarke cleared her throat and hoped that her voice came out confident, even though she was just thinking on the spot. It was something she'd gotten used to doing over the years, though, needing to hide things in her life where Bellamy was involved. "And they would have talked to people at the shop already, so they were able to wait...Until today to talk to me. And you, if they need to." She was lying through her teeth, but that was honestly one of her last concerns right now. She knew that Sterling would be dealing with the police side of things and there was no way that she would be talking to them, but that wasn't something she was going to say to Finn.

"Yeah, I guess," Finn shrugged a shoulder and didn't sound too bothered. "Did you guys want any help with breakfast? I do pretty good eggs." Clarke looked up at Finn in surprise and there was an easy smile on his face and it made her feel a bit more relaxed.

"That would be...Great, actually," Clarke gave him a small smile, this one a lot more genuine than her first one.

"Are we just doing enough for us three?" Finn asked as he moved over to stand next to Clarke, in between her and Roan, where Roan was adding sausages to the spitting pan.

"Four," came another voice, and once again, Roan didn't get look surprised by the fourth person coming into the kitchen, although Clarke's torso jolted a little as she looked over her shoulder and saw Emori d'Oliveira standing there, lips pursed together and arms folded over her chest as she looked around the kitchen with narrow eyes. She'd met Emori quite a few times, given she was Roan's niece and Roan had known Bellamy for a long time, and she worked part time at the gym, and she liked her, even if Emori didn't talk much. "This place is wicked," Emori added after a few minutes, and then walked over to hitch herself up onto the centre island and swing her legs. "And I'm fucking starved."

"Shouldn't be long, and then we're going to head down to the gym," Roan said over his shoulder as he used the spatula to shuffle the sausages around the pan.

"There's a gym here?" Finn's voice sounded almost in awe. "Shit."

"You not been here before either?" Emori asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nope, first time," Finn replied. Emori looked a bit surprised, which made sense, since her and Roan knew a bit more about what was going on, and she knew that Bellamy wouldn't be so happy with a strange person in the house. She didn't say anything else though, just watched the other three make breakfast with quiet, observant eyes. They were almost done and beginning to pile things onto plates when Abby came into the room, yawning and rubbing her face.

"Hey, mum," Clarke said quietly, walking over to her mother. Abby wrapped her arms around her daughter, hugging her in close to her body, and there was always just something about being held by her mum. She loved Bellamy and she loved Madi and they both knew how to make her feel better, but right now, there was just something about the way her mum smelt and the way her mum held her made her body relax substantially more than it had since Bellamy had left a few hours before. Probably even before then, because even when she had been asleep, when she had been at the docks with Murphy, she had been wound up.

It had just been a shit twenty-four hours in general.

"It's going to be alright," Abby said quietly, against the side of her head, into her tangle of blonde hair. "They're going to be alright." She was talking too quietly for the others in the room to hear and Clarke just nodded, not replying. "Alright, well," she stepped back, but kept one arm firmly around Clarke's shoulders. "Is there enough food for me? Or am I going to have to cook for myself?" She flashed a tired smile across at Roan to take any edge off her words, but then Finn was moving away from where he had been cooking the eggs. He'd finished cooking them and had now moved the pot onto a thick wooden chopping board, but he was looking a bit more pale than he had before.

"Uh—yeah, there'll be enough for you," Finn's voice was tight. "I need to be going."

"Is everything okay?" Emori asked, her eyes narrowing as she watched him tapping on his phone.

"Yeah, I just—I need to be getting home," Finn replied. "With everything that's happened I've been completely swept up, but I really need to be heading off. My boyfriend is kind of freaking out about the fact that I didn't go home last night." Clarke blinked in surprise at Finn, although it wasn't as though she had had anything to do with him since high school, so it wasn't as though she should be surprised that there were things that she didn't know about him.

"We could give you a lift?" Clarke offered after a moment.

"No, we couldn't," Roan abruptly stated, although he didn't turn around from where he was dishing up the sausages onto four plates. Clarke frowned as she looked over at him.

"What—yes we could," Clarke replied. "We're not going to make you take an uber or lyft." There was a snort from Roan, which just made Clarke bristle, and she kind of wished that they were in the ring  _now_ , so that she could throw a punch at him, even though she knew that it was just all this pent up tension that was working its way through her veins and was about ready to be fired at anyone who pissed her off.

"I'll give you a lift," Emori said as she slid of table. "After breakfast."

"It's fine," Finn's words were clipped, very different from how easy going he had been yesterday and even just ten minutes ago and Clarke winced in sympathy as she saw him tap out a message on his phone, she assumed to his boyfriend. If she was meant to show up at Bellamy's one night, and then hadn't, he would be going a little crazy as well, getting worried and over-protective, so she could understand if Finn's partner was doing the same thing. "I really need to leave now, not after breakfast. I don't need a ride, I'm already ordering an uber."

"No," Abby's word came out sharp and she got the attention of everyone in the room, even Roan looking up. She paused for a moment and was obviously trying to soften her expression as she looked at Finn, even though Clarke was pretty sure she hadn't actually met him formally yet. Marcus would have been told that there was someone in the house who wasn't actually part of the household, and he would have passed that onto Abby. "Sorry, love, but we will give you a lift. Emori will."

"Yup," she grunted out, and she didn't sound happy about it, but she picked a crispy piece of bacon up between her fingers and bit into it. "Let's go."

"No, I—honestly, I can just get an uber—" Finn was telling here but Emori pulled some keys out of her pocket and held them up.

"Let's go," she said, voice leaving no room for arguments and Finn pressed his lips together as he looked at her, face a bit pale. Clarke frowned, and she pushed her worries to the back of her mind for a brief moment.

"Are you okay, Finn?" Clarke asked, stepping away from Abby and toward Finn. "You don't look so good."

"Yeah, I'll be fine, I just—I need to get back to my apartment," he gave her a smile that didn't reach her eyes and Clarke gave him a tight smile in response, because it wasn't as though she could fault him for not giving her a genuine smile when she was pretty sure she hadn't given him one since they had run into each other in the juice bar.

"It was good seeing you again," Clarke said, feeling awkwardly formal.

"Yeah," Finn let out a short laugh. "Hopefully next time won't be so crazy?" His next smile seemed slightly more relaxed and he leaned in to give her a quick hug, which felt a bit uneasy. Clarke nodded as they pulled apart and Finn nodded at the others in the room. "I'll see you guys," he said, but his shoulders were still drawn up tightly and he left the room without saying anything else. Emori shrugged a shoulder and grabbed another piece of bacon before following after him. Roan was still turned around, the frying pan in one hand and a spatula in another, and once Emori and Finn were gone, he looked over at Clarke.

"He's your friend, right?" He asked.

"Not really—school friend. Kind of. Someone I hung out with at school," Clarke wrinkled her nose and then scratched her hands through her hair. "I haven't even seen him since high school."

"When did you run into him again?" Roan asked, his voice still even but his eyes calculating.

"Yesterday morning," Clarke replied and he hummed under his breath. Clarke watched him with a frown, and she was about to ask what he was thinking when Madi wandered into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She instantly pressed her lips together, cutting herself and shifting conversation topics in her head. Just because Madi knew a bit about what was going on didn't mean Clarke wanted to talk about things in front of her. "Hey, Mads—did you sleep well last night?" Clarke asked, dropping the pitch of her voice as the younger girl wandered over to her and butted her head against her shoulder.

"I forgot to turn my alarm off for work this morning," Madi hummed out sleepily. "And then I couldn't get back to sleep after." Clarke nodded as she wrapped an arm around Madi's shoulders and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Well, with those two gone, there's enough for us four," Roan announced and Madi's head bounced up from where it was on Clarke's shoulder at the mention of food.

* * *

Bellamy's hands were shaking.

He looked down at them, at the blood staining the skin, beginning to sink into the crevices and grooves and around his fingernails, sucked in a sharp breath and looked back up, across to the other side of the van where Octavia was sitting, Lincoln on the bench beside her with his hands quickly and efficiently working over her body, making sure everything was okay.

She was alive, which was the most important thing, and given the way she had delivered a couple of punches and then a vicious elbow jab to one of the men on their way out, she didn't seem to be too badly injured.

He gritted his teeth and looked over at Monty, who was talking quietly into his phone, although Bellamy was pretty sure the only reason he wasn't able to make out the words that he was saying was because of the adrenaline that was roaring through his ears.

"Bell!" Raven was snapping in the front seat from where she was in the passenger seat, next to Marcus, who was driving. Bellamy's eyebrows pulled together as he looked up and met her eyes, not saying anything but his expression had obviously shifted a little to show that he was a bit more present. "I said; Murphy and the rest of the team have finished their sweep. There's no one else in there and they've taken the hard drives that they can get their hands on. What do you want us to do?" Bellamy glanced over at Monty, who was watching him with careful eyes, his phone still pressed to his ear, and then over at Octavia and Lincoln, both of their attention on him as well.

"Burn it down," he uttered. "Burn all of it down."

* * *

Octavia had multiple abrasions, a sprained wrist, rope burns to her wrists and she had suffered a blow to the back of her head which meant Abby said that they were going to keep a close eye on her. She didn't have any signs of a concussion, but they couldn't be too careful when it came to head injuries.

All in all, Cage had known that it was in his best interests to keep Octavia as unharmed as possible, even if he had made the absolutely stupid mistake of taking her in the first place.

The rest of them had suffered some minors scrapes and bruises that Madi helped to tend to, after her and Emori had gone into the clinic to stock up on supplies, although Atom had been shot through the thigh. It was a clean shot, bullet had gone right through, and it said something about how long Clarke had been working at Bellamy's side that she didn't even ask questions or demand to be taken into the clinic so that she could work in proper, sterilized conditions.

Octavia was shaky, but she was going to be okay.

She was tough, had barely slept in the past twenty four hours, and yet she was still vibrating with adrenaline and looking ready to spit viciously in the direction of anyone who looked at her wrong.

"You need to rest, sweetheart," Abby was saying as Clarke came into Octavia's room, where she was being treated with only Lincoln, Abby and Bellamy in the room with her, so that she wasn't being crowded. Bellamy was standing on the far side of the room, looking out the window at the sunny day outside that seemed completely at odds with everything that was going on inside the homestead. "And you," Abby turned to Lincoln with a raised eyebrow. "You need to stay with her and wake her up every two hours. We need to make sure she's waking easily and responding when you ask her simple questions. I'm going to come in and check on her as well, but  _you_  don't leave her. We've also got to keep her fluids up, just water."

"I'm sitting right here, you know," Octavia grumbled, sounding resigned and not at all like a woman who had been kidnapped and held hostage for the past day. But when Abby turned to her, there was an understanding look on her face. "Thanks for this, Abs."

"Of course," Abby gave her a gentle squeeze, careful where she was putting her arm, and as she started packing up, that's when she noticed Clarke standing there, and she flashed her daughter a reassuring smile. As Clarke slowly walked over to where they were sitting on the bed in the large room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and she was surprised by how pale she looked, and her red-rimmed eyes. Octavia looked up and saw her and gave her a watery smile.

"Hey," Clarke let out a shuddery breath that she didn't know she had been holding.

"Hey," Octavia didn't sound much better.

Clarke wasn't as gentle as her mother had been when she leaned in and hugged her best friend. Octavia winced but she didn't seem to mind as she hugged her back. Lincoln was sitting so close to Octavia on the bed that their thighs were pressed together, and Clarke noted that he still had his gun strapped to his belt, body still on high alert. When Clarke pulled back, she looked over at Bellamy, who didn't seem to have moved from where he was standing at the window, practically glaring out the window.

He was still dressed in the gear he had left the house in, and as Clarke studied him longer, she noted that there were scrapes on his face that didn't look as though they had been cleaned out, which meant while she had been treating Atom, he hadn't gotten himself cleaned up by Abby or Madi.

"Alright," Abby clapped her hands once. "The rest of us out, she needs her sleep," she looked pointedly at Clarke and then Bellamy. "I'll be back with water and an ice pack, and  _you_  need to set an alarm on your phone, for every two hours," she reminded Lincoln, who was frowning determinedly in response and pulled out his phone straight away, starting to tap away, undoubtedly to set his alarm. Clarke leaned in to give Octavia a quick kiss on the cheek as she stood up, chewing down on the inside of her cheek because they had gotten luck— _so incredibly lucky_.

"Love you, Vee," Clarke said and Octavia gave her a watery smile before she let Lincoln coax back onto her bed, head lolling back onto the pillows. Clarke looked over at Bellamy, who was now looking over at them but still seemed hesitant to leave his post. But Abby was still standing there, all of her things back up into a bag and the rest tucked under her arm, and she had a no-nonsense expression on her face, and as much as this was  _Bellamy's_  household, he wasn't going to argue with Abby. Not when it came to his sisters well being. He pursed his lips as he crossed the room to stand on Octavia's side of the bed and he leaned down, putting a hand on her shoulder and leaning down to give her a kiss on the forehead.

"We'll talk tomorrow, once you're rested up, okay?" Bellamy said softly and Octavia nodded up at him before reaching out for her brother and giving his hand a hard squeeze before she rolled back into Lincoln's side. Out in the hallway, Bellamy headed straight to his room, and after sharing a look with her mum, Clarke followed after him. She didn't have any of her medical supplies, given she had been working downstairs, but she kept the ensuite in Bellamy's room pretty well stocked, given how often she helped to patch him up when they were at his place. She closed the door firmly behind her and Bellamy had already walked to the ensuite and when Clarke joined him, he was stripping out of the jacket he was wearing, and then beginning to unfasten the bullet proof vest.

Clarke stepped forward wordlessly and began helping him.

Once he was undressed, he reached into the shower and turned it on, and Clarke undressed as well, her eyes moving over Bellamy's body with a practiced eye, purely professional, and she was glad to note that he didn't seem to have any bad injuries, which is what she had already gathered by the way he had been moving.

There was a lot of blood though.

On his hands, soaked into his clothes which were now in a pile on the floor, and on his neck and collarbone, cutting off where the vest would have started.

As they stepped into the shower, Clarke picked up the body wash and poured some onto her hand, lathering it up between both hands before she started washing away the grime and sweat and blood on Bellamy's body. He turned around, so that she could wash his back, and then she worked shampoo into his hair, Bellamy buckling his knees a little so that she could massage it in, and then once it was washed out, he turned back around, and she took his hands in hers, still working at the blood that was there.

"Who does this belong to, Bell?" Clarke asked quietly, speaking for the first time since they had entered the shower. Bellamy's jaw tightened and he stared down at where there hands were twined together, Clarke's small fingers working tirelessly as they massaged the staining out of his big hands.

"Cage," he said shortly.

"He dead?" She asked simply, looking down at their hands as well. There was a pause and Clarke didn't push him, letting him take his time.

"Yes," Bellamy answered. Clarke looked up at him, and after a beat, Bellamy met her eyes.

"Good," she told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, we learn more about what happened to Octavia and at Cage's safe house, get some Bellamy/Clarke/Octavia/Lincoln bonding time and a bit more about the Blake family history xx
> 
> Please leave a comment!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay. Ick. I can't get out of my own head sometimes. I hope you guys enjoy :) I'll get around to editing later, as per usual.

Usually there was absolutely no way that Bellamy or Clarke could get any sleep through the day, but this was completely different, given how drained emotionally and mentally they both were. Clarke woke up first, wincing at how dry her mouth was, but then the events of the night before—the few  _days_  before—all flooding back and as she was met with the smooth, tanned expanse of Bellamy's back, she couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and squeezing herself as close to him as she could. It was her touch that woke him up, the way she was plastering herself against him, and after a few minutes, there was a sleepy touch to the back of her hand, stroking it comfortingly.

"Evening, princess," his voice was rough with sleep and generally that did all sorts of things to Clarke's places, but right now she was just grateful that he was safe, that the people she loved was safe, all she could think about was how close she had come to losing them. She kissed his back, between his shoulder blades, letting out a heavy breath as she squeezed him one last time and then rolled away to reach out for her phone, and she hummed under her breath.

"I can't believe we slept for that long. It's almost seven in the evening," she told him and Bellamy nodded, rolling over and reaching out for her. He gathered her into his arms and drew her back to his body, pressing kisses to her shoulder and her temple and Clarke sighed, feeling herself settle into the bed and her lovers embrace. "How...Are you feeling?" She asked carefully, pursing her lips together and focusing on his chest rather than looking up at him, wanting him to take things at his own pace and talk whenever he was ready.

"I'm glad it's over," Bellamy said shortly, and he let out a short breath through his nose, kissing her temple one last time before he pulled away to get out of bed. Clarke watched him go, still completely naked given they had come out of the shower and then just dropped their towels and gotten into bed, and he went to the drawers opposite the bed, opening one of them to find some briefs. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, and so Clarke swallowed hard before she continued.

"But it's not over," she commented quietly and Bellamy went still before he let out a hard breath through his nose and grabbed out a pair of grey briefs and pulling them on.

"I know," he said quietly, and Clarke nodded to herself, glad that Bellamy at least knew that. Not that she ever thought he would drop the ball, because Bellamy was pedantic and extremely thorough with everything in his life, but there was still something important that needed to be discussed and Clarke was also worried about Octavia, even though she knew that Abby would have been checking on her in the time that they had been asleep. She got out of bed, pulling on a pair of underwear and shorts, and then moving over to find a bra and pulling out a shirt from the drawer that Bellamy had opened, tugging his shirt over her head. Bellamy gave her a longer than normal look out of the corner of his eye, and even with everything that had happened in the past few days, Clarke couldn't help that slight jolt of thrill that ran through her at the possessive glint in his eye at seeing her in his clothes.

"I'm going to go check on Vee. I'm assuming you want to go and check in with Charmaine," Clarke said as she twisted her hair back into a bun, a few of the shorter strands falling out and framing her face and Bellamy's eyes narrowed.

"She's not our friend, Clarke," Bellamy said, his voice a bit hard. "She knew things about Vee getting kidnapped. She's McCreary's second, and he knew what was happening. Just...Try and keep things separated, don't call her by her first name."

"They didn't know what was happening," Clarke responded, but it was careful and quiet, because even though the immediate danger was out of the way and tensions weren't as high as they had been twelve hours ago, things were still on edge. Bellamy looked over at her with his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth set in a firm line. "They knew something was happening, but they didn't know that they were going to take Octavia." Bellamy's eyes were beginning to narrow and his lips parted. "I'm not defending  _anyone_ , here," she quickly rushed on, stepping forward and placing a hand on Bellamy's bicep. "It's the opposite, actually." Bellamy closed his his mouth again, waiting for her to continue, and Clarke appreciated that, because if it was anyone else, it was likely that Bellamy would have just shut them down. "I don't necessarily blame Charmaine— _Diyoza_ —" she corrected herself quickly. "Because she is McCreary's second, and just like with Lincoln, or anyone in your family, I would expect for her to follow your lead. McCreary though...That doesn't have to be complicated." Bellamy blinked at her, and then realization dawned on him.

"You're trying to make my life easier," Bellamy let out a snort and shook his head, but his eyes were soft and fond. "Always trying to look out for me."

"Someone has to," Clarke quirked an eyebrow at him and Bellamy tilted his head to the side and arched an eyebrow, as though he didn't have a whole  _team_  watching his back, but then Clarke carried on. "There's nothing wrong with taking McCreary out." Her stomach rolled a little at the fact that she was  _endorsing_  a killing, something that she had accepted a long time ago, but never something that she had  _agreed_  with before. But she had to be strong—Bellamy needed her to be strong—and this was her life, this was her  _position_  in this family, at his side, and she needed to be able to stomach these decisions. "Diyoza gave us information that lead to us getting Octavia back. We have to uphold our end of the bargain. We have to get rid of McCreary."

* * *

Clarke didn't know where Diyoza was being kept, either up on the third floor or maybe they had actually let her stay in one of the spare bedrooms, but she doubted that highly. She wasn't her primary concern now, though, so while Bellamy was going to check on  _things_ , she walked down to hall to Octavia's room, tapping her knuckles a couple of times against the door, waiting quietly on the other side for a response. Usually she would just let herself in, especially since it was early evening and on any normal day, that would no one in the household would be asleep, but this was no normal day.

"Come in," Lincoln called from inside, which must mean that Octavia was awake, and so Clarke pushed open the door, and she smiled when she saw the two of them inside. Octavia was sitting up in bed, a few pillows arranged behind her against the bedhead, and she was sipping orange juice through a straw, something playing on the TV screen that was mounted on the opposite wall, the volume turned all the way down. Lincoln only had on a pair of sweatpants, but he was sitting at the window seat with an iPad in his hands. He glanced up at Clarke as she came in and gave her a small, tight smile before looking back down at the iPad.

"Hey, Vee," Clarke breathed out as she moved over to the bed where the youngest Blake was.

"Hey, Clarke," Octavia shuffled over a bit from her side of the bed, so that there was room for Clarke, and the blonde didn't hesitate to lift the covers and get into bed next to Octavia, making herself comfortable and looking over at the TV. It was  _Phineas and Ferb_ , which made Clarke smile, but Octavia started talking straight away. "Where's my brother? Is he freaking out?" Clarke let out a short laugh.

"I don't know where he is," she admitted quietly. "We just woke up." Octavia arched an eyebrow in surprise, and out of the corner of her eye, Clarke saw Lincoln look up as well.

"You're good for him," Octavia commented with a smile. "No one else would have managed to get him to finally get some sleep." Clarke just shrugged a shoulder and looked back at the TV, not sure what to say. It didn't feel as though she had been all that helpful, given what everyone else had been doing, but that wasn't what she was here to debate or argue. Right now, she just wanted to make sure that her best friend was okay.

"How are you feeling? Has mum been in to check on you? Have you been feeling dizzy or nauseous?" Clarke asked, questions all coming out automatically and Octavia just shook her head, looking amused.

"Abby's already been in twice, and Linc has been keeping an eye on me, making sure I'm not getting any good sleep," she shot him a look and he just gave her a fond smile before looking back down at his iPad with furrowed eyebrows. "I'm okay, Clarke, honestly," she nudged Clarke's side with her elbow. "I'm just a bit sore and tired, but I'm going to be okay." Clarke nodded slowly, before pressing herself more firmly against Octavia's side, still careful because she didn't know where else she was tender, and she stretched out an arm behind Octavia, along her pillows, and curled it around her back. Octavia gave her a small smile before curling into her side, and the two women went quiet as they kept watching the cartoons on TV. They finished the episode and got partway through the next one when the door opened and Bellamy poked his head through, checking inside before he stepped in.

"Hi," he greeted everyone shortly, coming over to the side of the bed that Clarke had made herself comfortable on, kissing her on top of the head before reaching over her and kissing Octavia's temple. "You guys ready to talk?" The words were a question, but it wasn't really phrased that way, and Lincoln obviously knew that, because he put down his iPad and got up, coming over to sit down on the side of the bed. Bellamy sat down as well, next to where Clarke folded her legs up, resting his hand on her knee as he took in a deep breath. "Vee," he began, and there was something in the way he was holding himself and gritting his teeth that made Clarke frown and cover his hand with her own. "I need to know if there's any other help that you're gonna need."

"Bell..." Octavia murmured, her forehead wrinkling slowly.

"I know that Abby and Clarke can help if you needed a doctor, but—I need to know—did they—" Lincoln was frowning now as well, and Clarke blinked as she realized what Bellamy was asking. "Did they touch you? Did they—did they  _hurt_  you—"

"Bell," Octavia's voice was firmer this time, and Bellamy sucked in a sharp breath. "My clothes never came off. They never touched me—not like  _that_." Her words were strong and sure, and Clarke knew that she wasn't lying. "I mean—look at me. Bell,  _look at me_." The dark haired man lifted his chin to look at his sister. "They barely hurt me. They were careful. They didn't take me to hurt me, they just took me to get to you. I actually think they went out of their way not to hurt me, the fucking cowards," there was some venom in her voice then, which seemed to shift the conversation enough that Bellamy straightened his spine and jerked his head in a nod.

"They're all dead now, anyway," Lincoln said off-handedly, and even though Clarke knew that Cage was dead, she hadn't realized that the whole safe house  _filled_  with people was dead, and she blinked at that, but kept quiet.

"But if you do need me to find someone, someone to talk to, someone licenced—you tell one of us, okay?" Bellamy gave Octavia a pointed look until she nodded. Silence settled over the room for a few beats as that news sunk in, but then Bellamy cleared his throat. "Alright. So we need to talk about what happened."

"Bell," Octavia sighed, and she looked tired all of a sudden, even though she had been in bed all day, but it made sense, given how on edge she must have been for the past few days.

"You don't need to tell us all of the details," Clarke quickly said, sending a sharp look over at Bellamy as he opened his mouth to disagree. "But I think what Bellamy means, is we need to know if you heard anything while you were there. Do you know if Cage was where all of this ended? When he and his men died, was that it?" They were definitely the questions that Bellamy needed the answers to, things that he was already ninety-nine percent certain about from his own teams intel, but Octavia was smart, and there were things that she might have been able to pick up on.

"We need to know if we need to be looking further," Bellamy said roughly. "But..." his eyes flicked over to Lincoln.

"I feel like this might be it," Lincoln concluded. "Fucking finally."

"At least for the Cage side of things," Bellamy muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Octavia asked, her eyes narrowing and going hard and Clarke pursed her lips together as she realized that no one had had the time to fill Octavia in on what else had happened while she was away, where they had gotten the extra help from, but it wasn't as though there had been time, given since they had gotten back to the house, Octavia had been resting.

"Charmaine Diyoza is here," Bellamy told his sister.

"Diyoza?" Octavia's nose wrinkled, confusion spread across her face. "As in McCreary's second? What the fuck is she doing here?"

"She actually came with us to come and get you," Lincoln's voice was quiet. "But she was in one of the other cars, which explains why you wouldn't have really...Processed her presence." Octavia didn't say anything, although her eyebrows were still pulled together as she looked back at her brother.

"Diyoza reached out to us—to Clarke," Bellamy's lips were tightened in the corners as he said that and Clarke wanted to reach out and lay a hand over his arm to give him some sort of comfort that  _everything was okay_ , but she didn't, because she knew now wasn't the time. Even though they were just with Octavia and Lincoln, Bellamy's sister and his second, he still needed to be strong, so she stayed by Octavia's side. "It turned out that McCreary and Cage had some type of agreement."

"That fucking  _rat_ ," Octavia spat out, body suddenly tense as everything clicked. "He's been working against us this whole time?!" She lurched forward in the bed, making as though she was about to get up, but Lincoln was quickly getting up from the window seat and coming over to the bed, so the four of them were all seated there.

"You need to stay," Lincoln said warningly, reaching out an arm to press at Octavia's shoulder but she shrugged him off.

"No, wait—what the fuck?" Octavia's eyes were dark as she focused on her brother. " _That's_  why you want to know if it ends with Cage, right? Because you don't know if McCreary is the only one involved? You think there might be others?" Bellamy's face was pinched and Clarke blinked as she looked at him, because she hadn't considered that, hadn't heard Bellamy say that, but she guessed that it made sense. She had been so focused on Octavia and everything that was right in front of them, she hadn't thought about what else might be a threat around the corner.

Just another reason why Bellamy was the one in charge.

Even when everything was overwhelming and his  _sisters life_  had been in danger, he was still managing to think ahead.

"We need to talk to Diyoza again," Bellamy pursed his lips and spoke slowly as he looked at Octavia. "The agreement that we made with her when she said that she would be able to help us find you...It was that we would help her take over McCreary's position." Octavia arched an eyebrow.

" _Help_  her take over, or actually do the taking over?" She asked.

"Pretty sure she wants us to do the dirty work," Lincoln muttered.

"Good," Octavia dipped her head in a nod, and then continued evenly. "I want to do it." Clarke swallowed hard at the implication of Octavia's words. Bellamy frowned as he looked down at Octavia, but he didn't shake his head. Lincoln didn't look happy, but he didn't intervene.

"We need to know if anyone else was involved first," Bellamy said slowly.

"I'm sure McCreary can help us with that," Octavia's eyes were narrow, and when she was angry and her face was set and her eyes were dark like they were now, it was even easier to see the family resemblance between her and Bellamy. "He'll be spilling more than his guts when I'm done with him." Clarke couldn't help the way her nose wrinkled in disgust at the fact that that  _wasn't_  a metaphor, and she looked down at the bedspread, pulling at one of the loose threads on the cover.

It just felt as though there had been so much that had happened in the past couple of days that the idea of  _more_  torture and murder right there on the horizon made her shoulders feel heavy.

She knew that was what she had signed up for, when she became close to Bellamy and this family and his household, but...It was different when it was Octavia. Or someone that she loved.

"You can be the one to pull the trigger," Bellamy said gruffly and Clarke swallowed hard again, her throat convulsing. "But you're not going in there alone."

"I can  _look after myself_ —"

"We know," Lincoln interrupted her.

"But there's no way in hell anyone in this household is going into someone elses territory by themselves until this is all smoothed over," Bellamy finished, Lincoln nodding along. Octavia made a huffing noise under her breath, as this was all just annoying not _life threatening_ , and Clarke couldn't help but shake her head and smile a little in amusement at how casually Octavia was taking this. "Vee..." Bellamy's voice was different, lower, more vulnerable, and Clarke lifted her chin to look at her lover. "I'm not doubting that you can look after yourself. It's just...I thought we might had lost you. You know how it was with mum..."

"I know," Octavia nodded, her own face softening as she sighed. "I know." Octavia hadn't been as close to Aurora as Bellamy had been, just because of how young she had been, she hadn't spent as much time with her as he had. Aurora had been abducted when Octavia was three, and she hadn't been found alive. She hadn't been taken by another household, she'd been taken by some low level drug dealers who were losing more and more of their business as the Blake household brought in clean drugs at only slighter higher mark up, and they had wanted to teach James Blake a lesson. They had delivered her body back to the Blake mansion, thinking that they had completely thought this out, but they had been caught by Kane.

None of the dealers had made it off the property alive, and then the rest of their pathetic gang had been wiped out as well, along with their family and their associates.

It had been one of the most abrupt and most lethal blows that James had ever delivered, without mercy and without a second thought, but no one in the household questioned him, loyally following through with his orders, all of them incensed at the fact that their leaders wife had been so senselessly tortured and murdered. Aurora had been one of the sweetest, kindest women, she had always been too pure for the life that she had let herself lead once she had fallen in love with James, and she hadn't deserved what had happened to her. Sometimes the household alliance would step in, but Jaha had dealt with a similar loss in the past and deal with it in a similar way, when his daughter had been killed in a shooting, and James had had their full support.

Bellamy had been ten at the time, seven years older than Octavia, which meant that he had understood what was happening a lot more than she had, and that had definitely been something that had hardened his heart early on, something that had taught him just how dangerous the world that they were living in was, how hard his mother must have worked to protect him from it.

"It's okay, Bell," Octavia said quietly, shuffling forward so that she could reach out and awkwardly hug her brother from where she was between Clarke and Lincoln. "I'm okay. It's not—it wasn't like that." Bellamy just grunted from the back of his throat, shrugging one shoulder, but his arms were tight around his sister, and he let his eyes close as he rested his chin in the curve of her shoulder and just breathed. Clarke looked over at Lincoln from behind Octavia's back, and the taller man gave her a gentle smile before looking back at his girlfriend and his boss and best friend. The room was quiet as the siblings hugged, but as they pulled, the tension in the room changed, and Octavia steeled her expression as Bellamy stood up and straightened his back. "So. When do we fly out for Montreal?" Octavia asked.

"As soon as Monty get's tickets booked under our fake passports—we don't want McCreary to know that we're coming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed it!
> 
> Twitter: [CalamitySerene](https://twitter.com/CalamitySerene)  
> Tumblr: [SereneCalamity](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/serenecalamity)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think :)  
> Tumblr: SereneCalamity  
> Twitter: CalamitySerene


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